James Boswell

James Edward Buchanan Boswell (9 June 1906 – 15 April 1971) was a New Zealand-born British painter, draughtsman and socialist. Life James Boswell was born in New Zealand on 9 June 1906, at Westport, South Island, the son of a Scottish born schoolmaster, Edward Blair Buchanan Boswell, and his New Zealand born wife Ida Fair. He was educated at Auckland Grammar School, Auckland and the Elam School of Art before coming to London in 1925 to continue his training at the Royal College of Art until 1929. Although he was dismissed twice from the RCA painting school over conflicts with its then anti-modern stance, his early works were accepted by the London Group, with whom he exhibited from 1927 to 1932. He joined the Communist Party in 1932, switching from oil painting to illustration and establishing himself as a left-wing artist in the 1930s. He was a co-founder of the Marxist and anti-Fascist pressure group, the Artists' International (later called Artists' International Association, often referred to as the AIA), and contributed Hogarthian satirical prints to the Left Review, for which he was art editor, and, as "Buchan", cartoons for the Daily Worker. Around 1933 he married the artist, Elizabeth (Betty) Soars.