Emma Minns

‘Catch up with and overtake’ –
Pictorial statistics and the representation of Soviet success

This paper will discuss a little known area of Russian design history: the All-Union Institute of Pictorial Statistics of Soviet Construction and Economy (or Izostat Institute). Between 1931 and 1940 the Izostat Institute produced a variety of books, charts and postcards which presented the achievements of the Soviet Union through bold pictorial statistics for distribution both within the USSR and overseas. The Izostat method of pictorial statistics was based upon the ‘Vienna Method’ (later known as Isotype) and in late 1931 Otto Neurath and other colleagues from the Gesellschafts-und Wirtschaftsmuseum visited Moscow to help establish the Izostat Institute and to train Russian designers and technicians.

This paper will provide an overview of the work produced by the Izostat institute; examining how the Izostat method altered over the 1930s and in what ways it differed to the ‘Vienna Method’. Neurath and his team only worked in Moscow until 1934 and although the influence of artists such as Gerd Arntz can be clearly seen in Izostat material produced between 1932–34, post-1934 the inclusion of strong Socialist Realist images became just as important as adhering to the rules and methods of Isotype. In particular, this paper will look at the role of the Führungsbild or ‘guide-picture’ which in Izostat pictorial statistics took on a far more significant role than Neurath had originally ascribed to it.

The Izostat Institute and the material it produced was undoubtedly a tool of Soviet propaganda, visually recording the supposed achievements of Stalin‘s First and Second Five-Year Plans (1928–1932 and 1933–1938). Yet although the data the Izostat staff transformed was strictly controlled, the ways in which they did so demonstrates not only the influence of western designers, but also the contribution of Russian Constructivism, as well as Socialist Realism. This paper will argue one of the most interesting aspects of Izostat is as an example of the interaction between European and Russian art and graphic design.

This paper will be based on those original Izostat materials available in the UK, many from the University of Reading’s Otto and Marie Neurath Collection archive.

Emma Minns is a research assistant in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading. At present she is part of the ‘Isotype revisited’ project team and her particular area of interest is the IZOSTAT Institute and the development of pictorial statistics in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

Emma Minns

‘Catch up with and overtake’ – Pictorial statistics and the representation of Soviet success

‘Catch up with and overtake’ –
Pictorial statistics and the representation of Soviet success