Max Bill

Biography
Max Bill was a Swiss architect, designer, and sculptor. From 1924-27, he apprenticed as a silversmith at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich. In 1925, he was invited to the International Exhibition of Modern Visual Arts in Paris, where the works of Le Corbusier and Konstantin Melnikov made a strong impression on him. From 1927-28, he studied at the Bauhaus school in Dessau. From 1929, he worked as an architect and from 1932 also as a painter, graphic artist, and designer. In 1931, he married musician and photographer Binia Mathilde Spoerri (1904-88), with whom he had a son, Jakob (1942-), and his grandson David (1976-2018) was also an artist. He was a member of various artistic groups and in 1936 defined the goals of "concrete art." After the rise of Nazism in Germany, he helped endangered anti-fascists escape. In the 1950s, he became involved in environmental protection. From 1944-45, he began teaching at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich. In 1951, he helped establish the Ulm School of Design alongside Inge Aicher-Scholl and Otl Aicher, where he was its first rector from 1953-56. In 1957, he returned to Zurich. From 1967-74, he worked at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts. He participated in the documenta exhibitions in Kassel in 1955, 1959, and 1964. From 1961-68, he was an independent member of the Zurich city council and from 1967-71 a member of the Swiss National Council. Since 1974, he lived with art historian Angela Thomas, with whom he collaborated for a long time, and after the death of his wife in 1991, he remarried. He died at the age of 85 while being transported by ambulance to the hospital after suffering a heart attack at Berlin's Tegel Airport while waiting for a flight to Zurich.