CHRISTINE LINDEY'S book British Socially Committed Art from the 1930s to the Cold War examines how artists attempted to square the circle in the hard times of the 1930s Great Depression, the relatively good times in the war years and the climate of fear in the cold war.

Now, with capitalism in a continuous state of crisis, a government intent on making working people pay for it and with a popular demand for social change, the book takes on a new relevance. In this climate, when art is no longer an intrinsic part of our lives, socially committed artists find it increasing difficult to operate outside the art market.

Today, we make a special visit to galleries and museums to look at art as something special and separate from us. On leaving the gallery, we leave art behind and return to our normal lives. Art in this context doesn't impact on our daily lives, it is merely one more element in the mass of noise surrounding us, something the newspapers and television cultural guides tell us we "have to see."

As a practising artist working outside the elitist art world, I am, like the artists in this book, not immune to the influences of movements, fashion and all the “isms,” but I still believe in realist values, in figurative elements, in the concept of art as a conveyor of ideas and to entering into a dialogue with the viewer — art that expressively reflects the lives of “ordinary” people and be comprehended by, and accessible to, them.

Of course, it's not just the artist who is creative. There is an artist in everyone, but in most of us this is often crushed early in life or we are never given the opportunity of expressing ourselves. I'm very aware of my privileged position.

The problem for a socialist working as an artist is making art that not only communicates but is affordable for working people, enriches their lives and allows the artists to go on working and paying the bills. This raises a contradiction that's hard to reconcile — and perhaps can't be reconciled — between money and socialist art.

Many of the artists in Lindey's book never went to art school but were sent to secondary moderns where they received little education but what they learned was sufficient enough to equip them for their destiny as manual workers in shops and factories. I myself was sent at the tender age of 13 to a technical school to learn art of the “commercial” rather than “fine” type.

The question of who do we work for and how to get patronage for working-class themes or content is discussed at great length in the book. As one artist says with feeling, “It’s all very well for people to say that artist should make politically committed work but, if it does not sell, how are they to survive?”

Lindey points out that the Royal Academy has always been socially and politically conservative, but, importantly, it has prestige and for most of the public it is still the only exhibition of paintings that counts. But don’t go there now looking for committed socialist art or art that reflects working-class life. You won’t find any. Nor will you find much in the way of images of domestic or caring work, still mostly relegated to women and therefor socially invisible.

Work for a socialist artist is on a freelance basis, producing illustrations and designs for pamphlets, banners, placards, leaflets and cartoons. But this work was and is usually poorly paid or free.

Speaking from experience, the best place to pick up gossip about the state of the gig economy is not at the job centre but among freelance artists and film and television workers —the new working class.

The trade unions’ lack of commitment to culture has not helped.

Only in 1960 did the TUC finally give way to pressure from progressive trade unionists by adopting Resolution 42 on its agenda. Proposed by Ralph Bond of the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT), it recognised the importance of the arts in the life of the community and it was fully supported by the freelance group of which I was a part.

Lindey writes that the artists' work — well illustrated in the book — asserted the importance of working people and their right to peace, dignity, and social justice in the darkest of times and they evoked the wartime and post-war ambiences and political preoccupations.

She also examines the circumstances that turned these individual into socially committed artists, often going against the current art thinking of their times. She does so with clarity, exploring the dilemmas of socially committed artists striving to balance their political aims with their aesthetic ambitions while struggling to survive economically in hard times. A lesson for us all.

Jeff Perks is an artist and film-maker. British Socially Committed Art from the 1930s to the Cold War (Artery Publications, £25), is available online and in bookshops or for £28 including p&p from arterypublications.co.uk