Soyer, Raphael. JOHN REED CLUB - THE COMMITTEE. Lithograph, 1932 (Cole 22). Edition of 25, signed in pencil. 7 1/4 x 10 inches (185 x 255 mm). In excellent condition. Scarce. John Reed Club Committee members pictured are Nemo Piccoli, Adolf Wolff, Walter Quirt, Ivar Rose and Anton Refregier. We weren't poor. As I said before, you know, I had nothing to lose in the Depression, so I didn't feel it very much. And as far as what happened politically, I became a member of the John Reed Club. That was a club of writers and artists, leftists, all, and I think Rebecca influenced me very much. She was more aware of the politics. She was more aware than I. And I still look back to this John Reed Club as a great kind of, for me it was a great education. Nikolai Cikorsky indoctrinated me into the John Reed Club, and. . . . Well, there I knew what was taking place, all the unrest all over the place, the beginning of Nazism that you mentioned, and the advance of Communism, all those things, you know. And I became aware of those things. And that was my political education, the John Reed Club, the John Reed Club for Artists and Writers. There were a number of writers, there were a number of artists and. . . . And what's his name again? William Gropper. Joe Jones. Philip Bard. A number of these people. And they were all left and all young in those days. And I came there completely as a novice and didn't know much about it. Rebecca knew much more what was taking place. (Raphael Soyer, Smithsonian Oral History Archives interview with Milton Brown, 1981).
