Max Bill Swiss sculptor, abstract artist, architect and designer Date of Birth: 22.12.1908 Country: Switzerland

1. Biography of Max Bill
2. Education at the Bauhaus School
3. Return to Zurich and Abstraction-Creation
4. Advocate of Concrete Art
5. World War II and Abstrakt Konkret
6. Rhombic Forms and Progressive Culture
7. Color and Form Experiments in the 1960s
8. Source: 100 Artists of the 20th Century, translated by E. Musikhina

Biography of Max Bill

Max Bill was a Swiss architect, sculptor, designer, and abstract artist, and one of the most prominent representatives of concrete art. He was born in Winterthur in a family of a railway worker and decided to pursue an artistic education after completing school. At the age of 16, he enrolled in the School of Arts and Crafts in Zurich as a silverware apprentice. Concurrently, he worked as a graphic designer.

Education at the Bauhaus School

In 1927, Bill found himself at the Bauhaus in Dessau, where his teachers included such painting masters as Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Oskar Schlemmer. Bill explored various art forms, including architecture, sculpture, painting, and theater, and experimented with paper and metal. The Bauhaus principle of all arts and crafts serving one another is evident in all of Bill's works.

Return to Zurich and Abstraction-Creation

In 1930, Bill returned to Zurich, where he worked as an architect and freelance artist. A year later, he married Bini Spoerri. In 1932, he joined the Paris-based group "Abstraction-Creation," which proclaimed itself as a "collective vessel" of abstract art.

Advocate of Concrete Art

In 1935, Bill created his first sculpture, "Endless Loop," derived from the concept of the Möbius strip. This marked the beginning of his involvement in concrete art. His paintings during this period were influenced by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian and the "De Stijl" movement. Bill considered himself a representative of concrete art and followed the idea of geometric abstraction formulated by Theo van Doesburg, which dictated not imitating any natural or organic forms. His graphic series "Fifteen Variations on a Theme," initiated in 1938, vividly demonstrated his interpretation of concrete ideas, with an equilateral triangle gradually transforming into an octagon.

World War II and Abstrakt Konkret

During World War II, Bill was conscripted into military service in 1940 but still found time for artistic pursuits. He focused on the arrangement of colors on a plane and preferred rectangular forms for his paintings. In his other works, he explored color development, as seen in "Construction with Ten Rectangles" (1940-43). Alongside his artistic endeavors, Bill worked to promote concrete art and founded the journal "Abstrakt Konkret" in 1944.

Rhombic Forms and Progressive Culture

In the late 1940s, Bill introduced the rhombus form by placing a rectangle on its edge. The loop and spiral motifs inherent in his sculptures also found expression in his paintings, such as "Energy of the White Plane" (1948/49). In 1947, he became one of the founders of the Institute of Progressive Culture, viewing art as a means of fulfilling social demands and as an object of intellectual consumption that stimulates the human mind. In 1950, he co-founded the Ulm School of Design and became its rector a year later. Bill aimed to cultivate the traditions of the Bauhaus school and emphasized the unity of architecture and art. However, his ideas did not find support, leading him to resign from the school in 1956 and relocate to Zurich.

Color and Form Experiments in the 1960s

During the 1960s, Bill predominantly worked with color squares and fields in his paintings. In the series "Densifications," he overlaid different color groups in various ways (e.g., "Densification of Purple on Yellow," 1964; "Planes of 32 Parts in Four Colors," 1965). In the same year, he created stage designs for Alfred Jarry's play "Ubu Roi." In 1967, Bill accepted an invitation to become a professor of environmental design at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts and became a Swiss parliament member. He saw the purpose of his art in opposing society's belief in technological power, the destruction of the environment, and the "terror of consumerism." Throughout his career, Bill's paintings remained rooted in geometric forms. Max Bill passed away in Zurich in 1994 at the age of 85.

Source: 100 Artists of the 20th Century, translated by E. Musikhina