Max Bill has been one of the most complete and versatile artists of our time. Aknowledged as a universal genius, worked as an architect, painter, sculptor, designer, teacher and politician among other things.
He was born in 1908 in Winterthur, a city near Zurich, where he would go to study silversmithing at the School of Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule) before beginning his studies in 1927 at the Bauhaus, where characters such as Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Josef Albers, László Moholy-Nagy and Walter Gropius were lecturing. Bill would remain two years in Dessau, during that time he assimilated the teachings of the school, and stablished the outlines of his work.
After finishing his studies he moved to Zumikon, in the canton of Zurich and was part of several art associations such as Abstraction-Creation, in which, along with other abstract artists, brought up an aesthetic debate against Surrealism; Allianz, following the trends of concrete art, defined in 1930 by Theo van Doesburg, with a greater emphasis on the use of color than the contemporary constructivists; or the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) in 1938.
During the 50s he the design for the School of Design in Ulm (Hochschule für Gestaltung - HfG), of which he was rector and professor for three years while he was organizing exhibitions, such as "Die Gute Form", designing the Swiss pavilion for the Milan Triennale, or working as a designer. Among his most recognized designs are those made for the firm Junghans. A set of kitchen clocks, wall clocks and watches, which have remained almost unchanged until today and are characterized by the simple and accurate representation of time.
As James Wood said, in the catalog for the exhibition dedicated to Max Bill in 1974, "To Deal with Max Bill Solely as a painter, sculptor and graphic artist is to make a distinction which he never made in his work: the distinction between Fine Arts and the other areas if his activity".
Max Bill died in 1994, in Berlin, leaving as legacy such a wide collection that an attempt to cover it is almost impossible. For anyone interested in finding out more, in 2008 came the documentary film "Max Bill, The Master's Vision" (Max Bill, das absolute Augenmass) directed by Erich Schmid, exploring the artist's life, swinging between art and politics.
