Gerd Arntz

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Gerd Arntz in 1982

Gerd Arntz (born December 11, 1900 in Remscheid , † December 4, 1988 in The Hague ) was a socially critical artist and graphic artist ; he is considered to be the inventor and pioneer of the modern pictogram .

life and work

Gerd Arntz - the second child of an iron manufacturer of Protestant denomination - was not interested in becoming an entrepreneur and succeeding his father. For a short time he had worked in his father's factory, then in 1919 he decided to train as a drawing teacher at Lothar von Kunowski's Düsseldorf art school . The experiences of everyday working life, the strikes in the father's company and the class differences between employer and employee convinced Arntz for the affairs of the workers. For this reason he would later get involved in his art for the proletariat . Another reason for his socially critical graphics was his opposition to the war in the First World War .

In 1923 Gerd Arntz and Agnes Thubeauville († 1973) married. In 1925 Arntz had a major solo exhibition in Cologne, the following year there was a group exhibition by the Progressives , and he also took part in the Moscow exhibition of revolutionary art from the West . From 1929 to 1932 he was the graphic director of the Vienna Society and Economic Museum, where he shaped the graphic implementation of the image statistics compiled by Otto Neurath with his reduced style. In 1932/33 he worked in Moscow, where he had contact with Tatlin and El Lissitzky . In 1934 Arntz emigrated to the Netherlands, where he settled in The Hague. In 1940 he became head of the Netherlands Statistics Foundation. In 1943 Arntz was drafted into the Wehrmacht , but he was able to join the Resistance in Paris in 1944 . In 1946 he returned to his position. From 1951 to 1961 he worked as a picture statistician for UNESCO .

Political art

The first famous graphics were created in the 1920s when Arntz - politically left-wing and following the desire to improve the structure of society - artistically and in terms of content with the “group of progressive artists” (also: “Kölner Progressive” or “Progressive”) around Heinrich Hoerle (1895–1936) and Franz Wilhelm Seiwert (1894–1933) worked together. He had got to know the painter Jankel Adler in the Düsseldorf Aktivistenbund and through him the forerunners of the Cologne progressives , the group stupid , which included Hoerle and Seiwert as well as Angelika Hoerle , her brother Wilhelm Fick , Anton Räderscheidt and Marta Hegemann . Perhaps Arntz was even the one among the progressives who, later in exile, most consistently continued the line given by Seiwert: Social contexts should be shown through the picture, especially those relating to war and capitalism . The goal was the classless society established from scratch in Germany. With the help of figurative constructivism as a style, her art should have a direct impact on society.

For Arntz, the critical representation of social contexts was the basis for the development of universally understandable symbols. Enlightenment about social, social and political circumstances was the intention of his works as early as the 1920s. It arose from the close artistic connection to Seiwert - since 1924 - and remained a target in his graphics in the 1930s, especially in view of the spreading fascism in Europe.

Arntz says it very clearly: "At that time there was indeed still hope that the upper class would be swept away, and that hope lay on the workers". He wanted to make 'teaching pictures' that indicated the next tasks, "Occupation of barracks, occupation of factories and things like that." (Interview, 1980)

Image statistics - isotypes - pictograms

Arntz 'draft for a pictogram for unemployment ( Museum Marienthal )

Arntz's didactic endeavors were one of the preferences for his ability to develop an easily understandable pictorial language - isotypes , the development of which was inspired by the sociologist and philosopher Otto Neurath in Vienna , which was ruled by social democracy . Between 1929 and 1934 Arntz lived in Austria in order to develop the "Viennese method of image statistics" as head of the graphic department of the Society and Economic Museum (GWM) under the direction of Neurath. For this purpose, Arntz developed pictograms  - individual icons that were easy to understand thanks to the simplest possible graphic representation.

literature

  • Gert Arntz . Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne 1968.
  • Gerd Arntz, Critical Graphics and Image Statistics . (Catalog of works), Nijmegen, The Hague / Cologne 1976.
  • Rainer Manfeld: Art spectacle, anarchism and political art today, questions to Gerd Arntz , in: The beach is under the pavement . Hans Peter Duerr , ed., No. 7, Berlin: Kramer, 1980, quotation on p. 38.
  • Nenzel, Rüdiger, ed .: Gerd Arntz . Monograph series Remscheid Artists, Vol. 2, Remscheid 1982.
  • Gerd Arntz, time under the knife. Woodcuts and linocuts 1920–1970 . (Catalog with catalog of works), Informationspresse Leske, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-921490-40-5 .
  • Gerd Arntz, early graphics . Exhibition for the 100th birthday of Gerd Arntz, Nov. 2000 to Jan. 2001 at Galerie Gloeckner OCLC 46678438 .
  • Ed Annik, Max Bruinsma: Gert Arntz - Graphic Designer . 010 Uitgeverij, Rotterdam 2010, ISBN 978-90-6450-763-2 ( Dutch ).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Arntz, Gerd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist and graphic designer
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Remscheid
DATE OF DEATH 4th December 1988
Place of death The hague