Art Was Their Weapon: The History of the Perth Workers' Art Guild - Paperback

by Dylan Hyde (Author)

A comprehensive history of the art, politics, and culture surrounding Perth's Workers' Art Guild.

Dylan Hyde details the politics, art, and culture of Perth's Workers Art Guild, as well as the personal and professional lives of some of the movement's key figures. The Workers' Art Guild was a left-leaning political force and influential cultural movement of the 1930s and 1940s in Perth. Police and intelligence arms kept close tabs on the Guild and its members, jailing some and intimidating many others prior to and during the period of the banning of the Communist Party in Australia.

Art Was Their Weapon covers the personal and professional lives of key figures such as writer Katharine Susannah Prichard and theatre maverick Keith George, while charting the influence of the Communist Party on Western Australian artists. Readers will discover the story of a unique artistic and political movement in a provincial Australian city.

Author Biography

Dylan Hyde's published works to date have been an article on the Workers' Art Guild in Papers in Labour History (Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, No 18, March 1997) and a short piece in The Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia (UWA Press, 2009). Dylan previously worked in film and television production.