Constructive Clarity

Angela Thomas, art historian and Max Bill's widow, offers intimate insight into the peak years of his career

Swiss polymath Max Bill (1908-94) transformed the visual and nonvisual arts in myriad ways. He was an architect, painter, designer, sculptor, graphic artist, writer, curator, educator and politician. Outside his native Switzerland, he was feted with awards and retrospectives in Germany, the United States, Japan and Brazil. Following the first volume of this expansive biography, published in English in 2022, Bill's widow, art historian Angela Thomas, devotes this second installment to Bill's life during World War II and the postwar era, a period that includes some of Bill's most salient achievements. Thomas draws upon books, journals, interviews, unpublished documents and her own personal relationship with Bill to introduce readers to the artist's life and work and to explore the personal, cultural and political circles he was active in.