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April 29, 1949

REPORT
by
Yasuo Kuniyoshi

[[underlined]] 3rd Annual Membership Meeting and Election at the Hotel Plaza [[/underlined]]

It gives me great pleasure to greet all of you at our 3rd Annual Meeting and especially to welcome the out of town members who may be attending for the first time.

This afternoon we will be serious, but tonight we can really let ourselves go and shake a leg or two. I hope you are all planning to come. The more the merrier - and don't forget it is for a good cause - Equity's Welfare Fund.  We expect it to be very gay - full of surprises.

And now I want to review briefly our activities and to emphasize again the policies and aims of Artists Equity Association, which are the same as when we first formed in March 1947.  We are a national organization, non-political, esthetically non-partisan, representing the professional artist of America to further his economic interests.

At our first general meeting we had 300 members, to date we are over 1400, and have representation in almost all 48 states. Equity has not only grown in number, but we are proud to say it has also gained in respect and prestige.  There have been many instances to prove our strength and ability to act for the artist.  We are cooperating as much as possible with all those in the art field and have sympathetic support from dealers, museums, collectors, etc.

For instance, the Association of Galleries in New York and other cities held simultaneous exhibitions last fall of members' work of which 10% of sales were donated to Equity's Welfare Fund. The participating