Figurative Constructivism is an art movement that arose principally in Germany. The term was introduced by Franz Seiwert in 1929 using the phrase "gegenständlichen constructive", and this was subsequently taken up by Gerd Arntz and then by art historians more generally. [1] It is closely related to the development of the Isotype. As Seiwert wrote "From the expressionist-cubist art-form abstract constructivism was developed, which in turn led into Figurative Constructivism". [2]
In October 1929 Seiwert, Heinrich Hoerle and Walter Stern produced the first issue of A bis Z, subtitled "organ of the progressive artists group". It featured five artists from four towns: Seiwert and Hoerle (Cologne), Augustin Tschinkel (Prague), Peter Alma (Amsterdam) and Arntz (Vienna). [1] Tschinkel and Alma were both colleagues of Arntz at the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum run by Otto Neurath in Vienna. [1]
The Figurative constructivist approach was adopted by Ivan Ivanitsky of Lenizogiz in Moscow.
Otto Karl Wilhelm Neurath was an Austrian-born philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist. He was also the inventor of the ISOTYPE method of pictorial statistics and an innovator in museum practice. Before he fled his native country in 1934, Neurath was one of the leading figures of the Vienna Circle.
Statistics Netherlands, founded in 1899, is a Dutch governmental institution that gathers statistical information about the Netherlands. In Dutch it is known as the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, often abbreviated to CBS. It is located in The Hague and Heerlen. Since 3 January 2004, Statistics Netherlands has been a self-standing organisation, or quango. Its independent status in law guarantees the reliable collection and dissemination of information supporting public debate, policy development and decision-making.
Constructivism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko. Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space. The movement rejected decorative stylization in favor of the industrial assemblage of materials. Constructivists were in favour of art for propaganda and social purposes, and were associated with Soviet socialism, the Bolsheviks and the Russian avant-garde.
Isotype is a method of showing social, technological, biological, and historical connections in pictorial form. It consists of a set of standardized and abstracted pictorial symbols to represent social-scientific data with specific guidelines on how to combine the identical figures using serial repetition. It was first known as the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics, due to its having been developed at the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien between 1925 and 1934. The founding director of this museum, Otto Neurath, was the initiator and chief theorist of the Vienna Method. Gerd Arntz was the artist responsible for realising the graphics. The term Isotype was applied to the method around 1935, after its key practitioners were forced to leave Vienna by the rise of Austrian fascism.
Gerd Arntz was a German Modernist artist renowned for his black and white woodcuts. A core member of the Cologne Progressives he was also a council communist. The Cologne Progressives participated in the revolutionary unions AAUD (KAPD) and its offshoot the AAUE in the 1920s. In 1928 Arntz contributed prints to the AAUE paper Die Proletarische Revolution, calling for workers to abandon parliament and form and participate in worker's councils. These woodcut prints feature recurring themes of class.
Stupid was a short-lived grouping of constructivist artists, formed in Cologne in 1919. The founding members were Willy Fick, Heinrich Hoerle, Angelika Hoerle, Anton Räderscheidt, Marta Hegemann, and Franz Wilhelm Seiwert.
Franz Wilhelm Seiwert was a German painter and sculptor in a constructivist style. He was also politically active as a communist making significant contributions, both graphic and theoretical to Die Aktion.
Heinrich Hoerle was a German constructivist artist of the New Objectivity movement.
Constructivist architecture was a constructivist style of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. Abstract and austere, the movement aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space, while rejecting decorative stylization in favor of the industrial assemblage of materials. Designs combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced many pioneering projects and finished buildings, before falling out of favour around 1932. It has left marked effects on later developments in architecture.
Jankel Adler was a Polish painter and printmaker.
Marie Neurath, born Marie Reidemeister, was a German designer, social scientist and author. Neurath was a member of the team that developed a simplified pictographic language, the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics, which she later renamed Isotype. She was also a prolific writer and designer of educational books for younger readers.
Marta Hegemann was a German artist associated with the Dada movement and with the Cologne Progressives. She was a founding member of the Cologne art group Stupid.
Wilhelm Peter Hubert Fick, called Willy Fick, was a German graphic artist born in Cologne. He belonged to the Dada movement, and in 1919 became a founding member of the artist circle called Stupid, together with Heinrich Hoerle, Angelika Hoerle (1899–1923), who was the sister of Willy Fick and the wife of Heinrich Hoerle, Anton Räderscheidt, his wife Marta Hegemann, and Franz Wilhelm Seiwert. Fick was a Cologne dadaist from 1916 until 1923 and a scholarship student of Jan Thorn-Prikker at the Cologne School of Applied Arts /Kölner Werkschulen from 1928 until 1931. Duesseldorf art agent Johanna Ey represented his Weimar period works. Many works were destroyed by bombing in World War II but preserved in archival photographs in the Rheinisches Bildarchiv / Rhineland Picture Archive. Fick painted and cartooned until his death in Canada in 1967.
The Cologne Progressives was an art movement and were an informal group of artists based in the Cologne and Düsseldorf area of Germany. They came together following the First World War and participated in the radical workers' movement.
Angelika Hoerle was a German Dada artist who was a founding member of the Cologne art group Stupid and the cofounder of a Dadaist publishing house.
Peter Alma was a Dutch artist. Alma was born in Medan, Indonesia and attended the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague in 1904. On the recommendation of Franz Seiwert he was employed by the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum working with Gerd Arntz and Augustin Tschinkel on the development of Isotypes. He travelled to Moscow with Arntz and Otto Neurath to work at IZOSTAT to help them draw up pictorial images for statistics of the Five Year Plans. Alma was a member of Nederlandsche Vereeniging voor Ambachts- en Nijverheidskunst (V.A.N.K.) the Dutch Association for craft and craft art.
IZOSTAT (ИЗОСТАТ) was the "All-union Institute of Pictorial Statistics of Soviet Construction and Economy," an agency of the Soviet government that designed, created, published, and distributed graphic representations of Soviet industry that were easily understandable without written explanations. Founded as an educational unit, Izostat evolved into a producer of propaganda. It operated between 1931 and 1940.
Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum is a museum located in Margareten, Vienna.
Augustin Tschinkel was a Czech artist active with the Figurative Constructivist art movement.