Description
Gerd Arntz*
(Remscheid 1900 – 1988 The Hague)
Civil War, 1928/1978
screen print on paper, 31.8 x 40.2 cm
signed G. Arntz, dated 1928/1978
numbered XIV/XX, inscribed ‘Bürgerkrieg’
ESTIMATE €150 – €300
STARTING PRICE €150
German graphic designer and socially critical modernist artist. Born in Remscheid in 1900, died in The Hague in 1988. Regarded as one of the ‘fathers’ of modern pictogram language, he and Otto Neurath developed the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics (ISOTYPE), in which complex social and economic relationships are represented in a highly simplified, universally understandable visual language. In the 1920s, he was a member of the left-wing Cologne Progressives group centred around Franz W. Seiwert and Heinrich Hoerle; he is best known for his black-and-white woodcuts and linocuts featuring clearly defined, two-dimensional forms and explicitly socially critical themes such as class differences, war, work and urban life. From 1929 to 1932, he was graphic director of the Society and Economy Museum in Vienna, and in 1932–33 he worked in Moscow, where he came into contact with artists such as El Lissitzky and Tatlin. In 1934, he emigrated to the Netherlands and took up permanent residence in The Hague, where he continued his work in pictorial statistics and later worked for UNESCO, amongst others. Related artists and terms: Cologne Progressives, Franz W. Seiwert, Heinrich Hoerle, Otto Dix, Otto Neurath, ISOTYPE, pictorial statistics, political graphics, woodcut, linocut, New Objectivity, socially engaged art of the interwar period, émigré art
PLEASE NOTE:
The purchase price comprises the highest bid plus the buyer’s premium, VAT and, where applicable, the artists’ resale rights fee and platform fee. In the case of standard taxation (marked °), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The statutory sales tax of 13 per cent (20 per cent for photographs) is added to the sum of the highest bid, the buyer’s premium and the platform fee.
The buyer’s premium amounts to 28 per cent in the case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.
See original version (German)
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