The Australian Art Association, known as 'The Three A's' or 'AArtA', was a national body founded in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1912 by Edward Officer (inaugural president) John Mather, Frederick McCubbin, Max Meldrum and Walter Withers.Judy Blyth, ' Mather, John (1848? - 1916)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, MUP, 1986, pp 438-439. Retrieved 2012-07-22

Other organisations Other organisations have used the same name:

Bernard Smith notes that an earlier 'Australian Art Association' was formed when Tom Roberts, returning from overseas in 1885, found the Victorian Artists Society dominated by amateur artists. Leading a group of professional artists Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, John Mather, Ford Paterson, W. B. Spong, Percival Ball, Artur Loureiro and Ugo Catani, he formed the a break-away academy, the first 'Australian Art Association'. In 1888 it rejoined and merged with the Victorian Artists Society.

Registered under the Companies Act at 395 Collins Street (the National Mutual Building) on 27 May 1901, the Association funded Tom Roberts' travel to England to complete portraits for his history painting The Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, and issued photogravure prints of it; artist's proofs sold for thirty guineas on parchment and fifteen guineas on Japanese paper, while prints on India paper cost three and a half guineas.

In 1974 the Art Association of Australia was founded to represent art historians, academics, critics, curators, artists, and art students. In 1999 tt incorporated New Zealand interests and to become the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ).

Establishment of the 1912 Association Not connected to the first or second so named, another, which is the subject of this article, was established eleven years later as a national organisation exclusively for Australian professional artists (Tom Roberts was to show with them in the 1920s). McGrath, and Williams, note that it too was a break-away group from the Victorian Artists Society in reaction to its acceptance of amateurs as members. As The Argus newspaper article announcing it explains in 1912:  For some time past an endeavour has been on foot amongst the artists of the community to form a society which could fitly represent the highest attainments of the professional painters of Melbourne. The present Victorian Artists Society, it is claimed, fails to do this, as the professional element is a small minority amongst several hundred members, and the principle of one man one vote, it is said, renders them powerless to control the affairs of the society.

Proceedings culminated in a meeting held on Friday night in the Cafe Francais, attended by Messrs Mather, McCubbin, Withers, Innes, McClintock, Patterson, Meldrum and Officer. Amongst other resolutions it was decided unanimously to hold a first exhibition in May next, for which the Athenaeum is already secured. These names should guarantee the quality of the new body. Almost all have pictures in one or more of the National Galleries of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, and two are trustees of the Felton Bequest.

The name chosen for the new organisation is "The Australian Art Association". They will incur no expenses beyond those of exhibition, and thereby avoid the necessity for the large membership roll with they claim hampers the Victorian Artists' Society.

Members and office holders Members included Norman Macgeorge (second president), Rupert Bunny, James Ranalph Jackson, Leslie Wilkie, and William Dunn Knox whose first exhibition was in 1918 with the Association in Melbourne before he was elected to it in 1919 and later served as its Treasurer in 1924 with Edith Lucy Antoinette Hobbs (wife of George Bell

Other council members included Louis McCubbin, elected as President in 1912, Norman Macgeorge, Alexander Colquhoun, Napier Waller, Charles Wheeler, Harry (Henry Broomilow) Harrison, and Charles Web Gilbert, under President W. B. McInnes, with Leslie Wilkie secretary. Edward Officer was Secretary in 1914, when Clara Southern became the first woman to join the Association and the first to serve on its committee. George Bell joined the committee in 1922.

Ethos The Argus, after the Association had recently formed with members expressing "complete sympathy with the Federal art movement", reported that its aim was to reject "conventional, precise, and mechanical reproductions of nature" in preference for "a personal message, musical quality of line and colour." The writer was likely to have been the cartoonist and Max Meldrum disciple, Henry Bromilow Harrison who was freelance critic for that Melbourne paper for the lifetime of the Association.

In 1920, Edward Officer, President of the Association, in a letter to The Argus, represented its opposition to the import duty then being imposed on imported art, remarking that "This year it happens that many of the Australian artists who have made names for themselves in England and Europe will come to us with exhibitions of their work, and will be, as Mr [Arthur] Streeton was, confronted with this ridiculous duty." Their deputation in June to the Customs Minister discovered that he conceded, and that works of Australian artists and art students residing less than five years abroad would be free of import duty.

Exhibitions

Starting in May 1913, the Association held annual exhibitions of its members' work, usually in the Athenaeum gallery,

1913 The first, opened by Lady Denman, included works by Clewin Harcourt, Norman Macgeorge, Frederick McCubbin, Charles Webb Gilbert, John Shirlow, W. Lister Lister, Norman Carter, Howard Ashton, Hans Heysen, John Mather (artist), Ambrose Patterson, George Washington Lambert, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, Walter Withers, and Josephine Muntz Adams and those exhibiting with the AArtA on other occasions included these significant women artists:

Alice Marian Ellen Bale Janet Cumbrae Stewart (May 1913, 1916, 1917) Nora Gurdon Constance Macky Jenkins (October 1919) Marion Jones (October 1919) Vida Lahey (September 1922) Dora Ohlfsen Margaret Preston Thea Proctor (September 1922) Florence Rodway (September 1917) Clara Southern (June 1914, September 1917) Ruth Sutherland (June 1914, September 1917) Jo Sweatman (October 1916, September 1917, September 1922) Dora Wilson (October 1919, September 1922)

1914 The second exhibition, described (again probably by Henry B. Harrison) as "a sincere and very earnest endeavour to grapple with the problem of raising Australian painting from the despondency into which it has fallen," and more "widely representative of the best Art of Australia", was opened by Lady Helen Munro Ferguson in June 1914. She remarked that in leaving Australia, artists acquire the styles and character of other countries, but that the exhibitors, "who had stayed behind", appeared to her to be "purely Australian in character," and "should be regarded as benefactors." Joining with the founding group were Arthur Streeton, Penleigh Boyd, Percy Leason, Rupert Bunny, Harold Herbert, Herbert McClintock, George Coates, James Quinn, Clara Southern, David Davies, Ruth Sutherland, the American F. C. Frieske, Walter Withers, who died following a stroke that year, and E. Phillips Fox, who died in the following year.

1915 An 'art union' sale of work by one guinea subscriptions was held at the Athenaeum on 23 March 1915 to raise 500 guineas for the support of the Red Cross, with expenses borne by the AArtA, was fully subscribed, with a cheque for £665/12/00 (2025 value: A$84,380.00) presented to Lady Ferguson. Hans Heysen was one who contributed a painting, however, such was the intensity of anti-German sentiment that the National Gallery declined his work and he felt obliged to quit the Association due to similar attitudes he encountered there, declaring that “if a man’s feeling for Australia cannot be judged by the work he has done then no explanation on his part would dispel the mistrust ."H. Heysen to E. Grüner, draft of a letter c. April 1918, National Library of Australia MS 5073.

The annual exhibition was held that year on 7 October, opened by the Governor Sir Arthur Stanley, who remarked that the association should offer no apology exhibiting in war time because it was essential to keep art alive in such times of turmoil; "in fact, they should especially exert themselves at such a period. When the mind of the world was diverted towards destruction it was well that there were people who continued to devote themselves to a creative work." Twenty percent of profits—£19/12/8 (2025 value: A$2,484.00)—was reserved to fund the Red Cross. Later that year the AArtA joined the Women's Art Club, the Arts and Crafts Society, and the National Gallery School students in a 17 December 'Remembrance Day' effort to sell works to provide a special ambulance for use in the war.

1916 The fourth AArtA annual exhibition, again at the Athenaeum and opened by the Governor and his A.D.C. the screenwriter Capt. Conant, was held in October 1916, in which was "the most beautiful portrait study she has ever accomplished" by Janet Cumbrae Stewart, with her Red Cross Worker, and "vibrating light" in Leslie Wilkie's study of an interior, were praised in an upbeat Argus review written by another journalist, since HB Harrison, the usual commentator, was showing works, "realising...textures, and play of light." In America, The Christian Science Monitor published a report on the show by a Melbourne-based 'special correspondent' in its December issue.

1917 On 12 September 1917 the fifth AArtA exhibition, opened again by Governor Stanley at the Athenaeum, included works by Clara Southern, James Jackson, Florence Rodway, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, Leslie Wilkie, H. B. Harrison, Edward Officer, Frederick McCubbin, Clewin Harcourt, Norman Carter, Alexander Colquhoun, Jo Sweatman (whose first solo show, of 150 works opened next at the Athenaeum), Herbert McClintock, Ruth Sutherland, John Shirlow, Louis McCubbin, Albert E. Newbury, and Norman MacGeorge. On 17 September The Australasian published reproductions of selections from the show.

1918 In the last months of WWI, funds from the sixth exhibition, held in June 1918, were donated to the Red Cross. Penleigh Boyd, A. E. Newbury, Leslie Wilkie, Clewin Harcourt, Norman McGeorge, Edward Officer, W. Beckwith McInnes, William Dunn Knox, L. Bernard Hall, Frederick George Reynolds, Ruth Sutherland, Jo Sweatman, Marion Jones, Dora Wilson, Clara Southern, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, Alexander C. McClintock, Harold Herbert, J. R .Jackson, William Frater, Alexander Colquhoun, W. Nicholls Anderson, Charles Wheeler, and (the late) Frederick McCubbin exhibited.

1919 The Art Association's annual exhibition in October 1919 was preceded in August-September by that of its rival organisation, the Victorian Artists Society. Penleigh Boyd, W. B. McInnes, Edward Officer, Norman McGeorge, William Dunn Knox, R. H. Harrison, Edwin Harcourt, Leslie Wilkie, Bernard Hall, Jo Sweatman, Ruth Sutherland, J. McNally, Harold Herbert, Dora Wilson, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, Will Ashton, Florence Rodway, Norman Carter, and Constance Jenkins were among the exhibitors. During the exhibition, the members dined at J. Richardson's 'Café Francais' at 257 Little Collins St. to honour their President, Edward Officer and to toast soldier artists.

1920 Opening on 1 October 1920, The Argus made special mention of works by work by Arthur Streeton, Penleigh Boyd, Louis McCubbin, Edward Officer, Alexander Colquhoun, Norman Macgeorge, William Dunn Knox, Clewin Harcourt, James Jackson, Charles Wheeler, Bernard Hall, Leslie Wilkie, W. H. Mcinnes, H. B. Harrison, Jo Sweatman, Will Ashton, Janet Cumbrae Stewart, Dora Wilson, Harold Herbert, Alexander C. McClintock C. Webb Gilbert, and newcomers Napier Waller, James Ranalph Jackson, Frank R. Crozier, David Alison, George Clausen, Christian Hampel, and George Bell.

1921