Swiss artist and architect Max Bill's interdisciplinary approach helped to shape the development of 20th-century design and design education. A former student of the Bauhaus, Bill's art practice is recognised for its furthering of Bauhaus philosophy, as well as its influence in movements such as Concrete Art and Constructivism.
Read MoreBill trained as a silversmith at the Zurich School of Applied Arts before going on to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1927 to 1928, where he was taught by artists including Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee.
Bill returned to Zurich in 1929 and throughout the 1930s and 40s was involved with numerous groups and associations, including the Swiss Werkbund (SWB), Abstraction-Création, CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne), Allianz publishing house, and the Institute for Progressive Culture (IPC).
Bill taught at the Zurich School of Applied Arts in the mid-1940s, and in 1953 he co-founded the Ulm School of Design with Inge Aicher-Scholl and Otl Aicher. Bill was the school building's architect and the school's first rector. The curriculum reflected his interdisciplinary approach to design and greatly influenced the development of modern design internationally.
Max Bill was an architect, painter, sculptor, industrial designer, and graphic designer. His graphic design work was met with acclaim for its innovative typography, while his industrial designs, which included furniture and timepieces, became icons of 20th-century design. The 1954 Ulm stool, produced by Bill in collaboration with Dutch designer Hans Gugelot, is an enduring piece of mid-century furniture celebrated for its sleek, minimal form and utilitarian versatility. Bill's Junghans clock (1956–1957) and Junghans watch (1961) similarly became famous for their clarity, simplicity, and functionality.
Bill was a major proponent of Concrete Art, a term coined by Theo van Doesburg, and stated that its aim was to create 'in a visible and tangible form things which did not previously exist—to represent abstract thoughts in a sensuous and tangible form'. Concrete Art championed art that was devoid of symbolism and without basis in observable reality. Bill began making sculptures in the early 1930s, and later works such as Konstruktion aus einem Kreisring (Construction from a ring) (1942) and Endless Loop (1953–1956) form visualisations of geometric and mathematical concepts, notably the Möbius strip.
Bill's paintings reflect his background in the Bauhaus movement. His works demonstrate a meticulous consideration of colour, balance, and proportion, with the surface carefully plotted to render shapes and planes in relation to the canvas. Expansion in Four Directions (1961–1962) features the distinct tilted square format also used extensively by Bill's contemporary Piet Mondrian and sees tension generated in the pictorial space through an irregular demarcation of corners and layers. System mit vier gleichem farbquanten (System with Four Equal Colour Quanta) (1970) contains four variations of block colour combinations, neatly arranged in geometric order. Bill viewed the integration of mathematics and geometry with design and art as a way to rationalise the chaos of art and the natural world and to unify visual language.
In 1987, Bill received the Frank J. Malina Leonardo Award for lifetime achievement. In 1993, he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale for sculpture by the Japan Art Association.
Following his death in Berlin in 1994, Bill's widow, the curator Dr Angela Thomas Schmid, established the Max Bill Georges Vantongerloo Foundation to represent the estates of the two artists, who developed a close relationship and collaborated through their careers.
Max Bill's practice has been the subject of major retrospectives and solo art exhibitions in Switzerland and internationally, including at the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (1951); Kunsthaus Zurich (1968, 1988); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1974); Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (1975); Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf (1977); Kunsthalle Budapest (1987); Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop (1987); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1988); Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen (1990); Fondation Saner, Studen, Switzerland (1993); Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2005); Royal Palace of Milan (2006); MARTa Herford, Germany (2008); Annely Juda Fine Art, London (2011); Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzterland (2020); Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2021).
Bill participated in documenta in 1955, 1959, and 1964.
Bill's work is held in major international collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; and the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp, among others.
Misong Kim | Ocula | 2022
