The First 25 Years
Stern, Simon
Spring 2001
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At the beginning of the 70s, though colour offset lithography had already ushered in the wealth of adventurous children's illustration that we now take for granted, the rest of the illustration market was confined to realistic work on paperbacks and in womens magazines, (usually featuring semi-clad females) and a tiny quantity of more stylised work, most of it in the black and white in the Radio Times. That was about it.
So when, in 1973, a small group of illustrators and agents got together to inaugurate the Association of Illustrators, chief among their aims was to expand the market for illustration. By 1975 the AOI's bi-monthly Journal had started to include a substantial amount of imagery, and in 1976 the first jury selected Association of Illustrators Annual of Illustration was published.
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It was a heroic achievement; then, as now, the product of huge amounts of work and angst for those who created it: a good deal of angst, too, for those who failed to get in. Every year the AOI tried to make sure its juries were well balanced; every year came passionate complaints from a few of the unsuccessful. Since only one entry got in for every ten submitted, the offended always outnumbered the delighted by a good margin.
The annual fell on fertile soil. The design industry was ready for new ideas and art directors seized on the new imagery, both the mainstream and the more adventurous. Except for Booth Clibborn's 'European Illustration' there was no other illustration annual around. In those happy days clients actually bought their copy, and entry costs for the illustrator were nominal.
There have been two name changes over the years. Annuals 4 & 5 were re-christened 'The Best of British Illustration' , but Edward Booth Clibborn threatened to sue, so the name was changed to 'Images', a name that has stuck ever since.
In other fields, too, the AOI was making progress. Clients no longer assumed they owned the artwork they commissioned. The legal niceties of licencing and copyright were sorted out, at least in theory. A huge battle with the print unions was fought and won under the long reign of Joyce Kirkland, the AOI's first full-time administrator. The 'radical committee' arrived on the scene in 1981, and caused a huge rumpus. Under its influence the work of Ian Pollock, George Snow, Andrej Klimowski and others was seen as the new wave in illustration. The AOI acquired a gallery near Goodge Street, the magazine went into colour, business was booming (remember 'big bang'?) and illustration had arrived.
Then the AOI became the victim of its own success. Illustration's new high profile spawned illustration courses in the colleges and a flood of new people on the market. Two major sponsors, Benson & Hedges and the Readers Digest, withdrew their support. New illustration agencies sprang up, quite a few started by ex AOI administrators, so that many more artists had agents to represent them and felt less need to belong to the AOI. The 1992 recession hit. When it was over computers had come on the scene, and the days when illustration the new fashionable happening thing were over.
The AOI's existence had also made possible the advent of Contact, the first of the paid space annuals. Contact: Illustrators '85 had a mere 26 pages of illustration in it, but it grew. Though the artists had to pay to get in, it had two great advantages: it was sent to clients free, and from the illustrator's point of view you could, once you'd paid your money, be sure of getting in.
So Images had to follow suit. It, too, was sent out free, and charged the illustrator for entry, albeit less than half as much as Contact. Today, though no longer the only all British annual around, Images continues its important role as the only jury selected annual, providing a showcase in which illustrators can be sure of rubbing shoulders with the best, and commissioners can see the best. For the artists who submit their work to the judgment of their peers, Images is the benchmark.
As for the AOI, though it has had to pull in its horns since the 80s, it is still going strong. The big battle now is over intellectual property, a battle being fought side by side with photographers and journalists not just in the UK, but worlwide. By plugging into this network of creator organisations of every kind, we are able to add our voice in government and in Europe to those resisting the corporate takeover of the ownership of copyright in imagery.
The magazine re-launch and the AOI's evovling web-site, on which a fuller history of the AOI can be found, (www.aoi.co.uk) show that it is still on the move. Looking back at how things were when the AOI started it seems to me that it has achieved an enormous amount, and my bet is both the AOI and Images will be going strong another twenty five years from now.
Simon Stern
AOI Patron
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