(Winterthur 1908–1994 Berlin) Four Zones, on the reverse signed, dated Max Bill 1962–63, oil on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, framed, (PP)

Photo certificate: archivio Max Bill - Italia, Galleria Lorenzelli, Milan, 15.02.2013

Provenance: Collection Mondadori, Milan
Galleria Seno, Milan
Private Collection, Europe

Exhibitions: Zurich, Gimpel & Hanover Galerie, Max Bill, exhibition catalogue, no. 27 (label on the reverse);
New York, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1965 (label on the reverse);
Nürnberg, Biennale Nürnberg, 1968 (label on the reverse);
Düsseldorf, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Max Bill, 1968 (label on the reverse);
Hannover, Kestner-Gesellschaft 1968, cat. no. 60 (label on the reverse);
Geneva, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Max Bill, 1972 (label on the reverse)

Max Bill was a member of the Swiss Allianz together with Camille Graeser, Verena Loewensberg and Richard Paul Lohse, a group of concretists who developed the constructivist form of Concrete Art, particularly during the 1940s. The main features of Bill’s oeuvre were a reduction into individual elements and the perfection of appearance, often based on geometrical ordering. He himself identified two alternating principles behind his painting: adding rhythm to hermetic surfaces and dynamism to calm. (Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein)

The composition of the work Vier Zonen is based on the number 4. It consists of 40 squares. 4 “circles of squares” reduce in size towards the centre. The sides of the 3 outer circles are composed of columns, each 4 squares in length, while the innermost square contains 4 squares, arranged as a cube. The work can also be viewed as a grid, each quarter divided into 4 large squares, and hence Vier Zonen. The innermost square in each of these 4 zones itself consists of 4 squares – this principle is repeated twice as it tapers towards the centre.

The impact of the colours lends dynamism to the harmonic arrangement of the surfaces.