Untitled 1973

This untitled image was made by Max Bill using screen printing techniques. The arrangement of blue, green and yellow triangles radiating from a central point has a utopian feel. Bill was Swiss and deeply involved in design education. In 1951, he became director of the Ulm School of Design in Germany, an institution established to revive the German design industry after the second world war. Though it only lasted until 1968, the school became a hugely influential center for a formalized, systematic approach to design, informed by the aesthetics of the Bauhaus. In this context, Bill’s print embodies the kind of rationalism that was thought capable of rebuilding a shattered world. Looking at this image, we might ask how such images operated in the postwar period. Researching the history of institutions such as the Ulm School of Design offers an insight into the social forces that shaped art in this period. By understanding this, we can better appreciate how art carries meaning within specific historical contexts.