Marie Neurath, born Marie Reidemeister (27 May 1898 – 10 October 1986), was a German
designer
A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans.
In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...
,
social scientist
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of socie ...
and author. Neurath was a member of the team that developed a simplified
pictographic
A pictogram, also called a pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto, and in computer usage an icon, is a graphic symbol that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and ...
language, the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics (''Wiener Methode der Bildstatistik''), which she later renamed
Isotype. She was also a prolific writer and designer of educational books for younger readers.
Biography
Marie Reidemeister was born in
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the Nor ...
, Germany on 27 May 1898.
Her brother was mathematician
Kurt Reidemeister
Kurt Werner Friedrich Reidemeister (13 October 1893 – 8 July 1971) was a mathematician born in Braunschweig (Brunswick), Germany.
Life
He was a brother of Marie Neurath.
Beginning in 1912, he studied in Freiburg, Munich, Marburg, and Götting ...
. Reidemeister studied mathematics and physics from 1917 to 1924 in
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
, Germany, while also taking courses at the "Kunstschule" (art school) in 1919.
Just before graduating she met
Otto Neurath
Otto Karl Wilhelm Neurath (; 10 December 1882 – 22 December 1945) 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 mu ...
and soon moved to
Vienna
en, Viennese
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, registration_plate = W
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. In 1925 she began work at the
Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum
Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum (Museum for Social and Economic Affairs) is a museum located in Margareten, Vienna.
History
Following World War I, Vienna experienced extreme devastation and deprivation which radicalized architects and designe ...
in Wien (Social and Economic Museum of Vienna). The museum was founded to communicate the city's social reform programme to the public. This was the start of her long activity as the main "transformer" (in English, one would now say designer) working with Otto Neurath in the teams that made graphic displays of social information, an early form of information design.
The other essential member of the Neurath group, the German artist
Gerd Arntz
Gerd Arntz (11 December 1900, in Remscheid – 4 December 1988, in The Hague) 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 Progress ...
, joined in 1928. Marie Reidemeister worked at this museum in
Vienna
en, Viennese
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until the brief civil war in
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
in 1934, moving then with Neurath (a prominent
Social Democrat
Social democracy is a Political philosophy, political, Social philosophy, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocati ...
) and Arntz (who had allegiances to radical-left groups) to
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
. A new name was needed for the Vienna Method now that its original context was left behind: Marie Neurath developed the acronym
Isotype (International System of Typographic Picture Education) in 1935 on the analogy of
Charles Kay Ogden
Charles Kay Ogden (; 1 June 1889 – 20 March 1957) was an English linguist, philosopher, and writer. Described as a polymath but also an eccentric and outsider, he took part in many ventures related to literature, politics, the arts, and philos ...
's "
Basic English
Basic English (British American Scientific International and Commercial English) is an English-based controlled language created by the linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teach ...
". It was intended as a method of pictorial statistics that could clarify scientific relationships for non specialists. Large data volumes were translated in a comprehensible and memorable visual form. The data was illustrated and interconnections were to be presented, the result was a promoted democratisation of knowledge. Neurath collected the information, Arntz developed the pictograms and graphics and Reidemeister converted the information and data into a visual understandable presentation. She linked technical experts and graphic designers as well as the target audience. Otto Neurath called this position the "trustee of the public".
In 1940, as the German army invaded the
Netherlands
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, Reidemeister escaped with Neurath to
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, while Arntz stayed behind in The Hague. In 1941, after release from internment (as "
enemy aliens
In customary international law, an enemy alien is any native, citizen, denizen or subject of any foreign nation or government with which a domestic nation or government is in conflict and who is liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and ...
"), Marie and Otto Neurath were married,
and resumed their work in
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, founding the Isotype Institute. The Isotype Institute produced more than 80 illustrated children’s books, half are dedicated to science education. After Otto Neurath’s death in 1945, Marie Neurath carried on the work with a small number of English assistants, moving to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in 1948.
After her retirement in 1971, she gave the working material of the Isotype Institute to the
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...
, where it is housed in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication as the Otto and Marie Neurath Isotype Collection.
Thereafter she devoted much energy to establishing a record of Otto Neurath’s life and work, and editing and translating his writings. She died in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in 1986.
References
Further reading
*
*Otto Neurath (ed. Marie Neurath and Robert S. Cohen), ''Empiricism and Sociology'', Dordrecht: Reidel, 1973.
* Michael Twyman, ''Graphic Communication Through Isotype'', Reading 1975.
* Liz McQuiston, ''Women in Design – A Contemporary View'', London 1988.
* Gerda Breuer and Julia Meer (ed), ''Women in Graphic Design'', p. 520/521, Jovis, Berlin 2012, .
External links
Marie NeurathIsotype revisited
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neurath, Marie
1898 births
1986 deaths
Writers from Braunschweig
Information graphic designers
University of Göttingen alumni
People associated with the University of Reading