Lot 3412 - A201 PostWar & Contemporary - Thursday, 30. June 2022, 05.00 PM
MAX BILL
(Winterthur 1908–1994 Berlin)
komplementarität und verdichtung. 1966/71.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated on the reverse: bill 1966-71, as well as signed, dated, titled, with measurements and directional arrow on the stretcher: max bill komplementarität und verdichtung 1966-71 Diagonal 57 cm oben haut top.
57 × 57 cm.
Provenance:
- Marlborough Gallery, Zurich.
- Purchased from the above by the present owner in 1972, since then private collection Switzerland.
"I am of the opinion that it is possible to develop an art largely on the basis of mathematical thinking." – Max Bill
The Swiss painter, sculptor, designer and architect Max Bill was the co-founder of the Concrete Art movement and is regarded today as one of its most important exponents.
For Max Bill, from 1936 onwards his paintings and sculptures were concrete, not abstract, as they were not abstractions but statements. By adopting a mathematical way of thinking in art, he focused rather on the shaping of rhythms, relationships and laws, as they exist in the individual thinking of pioneering mathematicians. In this way, for the artist striving for unity, invisible, abstract thinking becomes concrete, vivid and also perceptible to the senses.
The present work reveals itself to the viewer in an intense palette of colours. Bill chooses the shape of the upside-down square for his composition in the usual manner. As the title already indicates, he uses the complementary contrast of orange and blue as well as red and turquoise, applying Itten's colour wheel. Concepts such as freedom and equality as well as social problems and themes recur in Bill's œuvre.
The artist confronts these abstract problems in his Concrete Art by solving them pictorially and creatively: his works represent the arrangement of equal surfaces and colour components; this is also the case with the present work, in which the geometry arises from an inner organisation and analysis. Complete and self-contained, Bill's work represents his successfully calculated use of measurement and laws, using colour, light, surfaces and lines.
CHF 25 000 / 35 000 | (€ 25 770 / 36 080)
Sold for CHF 63 740 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.