Max van Ray was born in 1895 in Edam, Holland. In addition to having inherited incomes, his parents were teachers and in1900 his mother visited the Centennial Exhibition in Amsterdam and saw an exhibit of educational blocks created by Friedrich Frøebel. The blocks, known as Frøebel Gifts were the foundation of his innovative kindergarten curriculum. She bought a set of blocks for Max. These were geometrically shaped and could be assembled in various combinations to form three-dimensional compositions. This is how van Ray described the influence of these exercises on his approach to design. Here was a general supposition that Max would become a teacher, but he recoiled from joining his parents in the ranks of the bourgeois middle classes of Edam. Van Ray announced that architecture would be his future and being in possession of his own trust fund, decided to travel to Germany to try for a place at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt. In September 1912 he enrolled onto a course of architectural engineering along with a Russian he had met in the foyer. The Russian was El Lissitzky.
There was a general supposition that Max would become a teacher, but he recoiled from joining his parents in the ranks of the bourgeois middle classes of Edam. Van Ray announced that architecture would be his future and being in possession of his own trust fund, decided to travel to Germany to try for a place at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt. In September 1912 he enrolled onto a course of architectural engineering along with a Russian he had met in the foyer. The Russian was El Lissitzky.
Between 1913 and 1914 van Ray became fascinated by the news of unrest in El Lissitzky’s home country, Russia. When World War 1 broke out in 1914, his parents, fearful of a German invasion left Holland for Switzerland and van Ray followed El Lissitzky to Moscow. He enrolled as a student of engineering and architecture at the Riga Technical Institute and received his diploma in 1918 with the degree of Bachelor of Architecture.
Van Ray found sketching a natural part of his Architectural programme. The concept of drawing existing buildings and then moving straight to the drawing board to create a masterpiece was not natural. Instead he used charcoal and soft pencil to create geometrical shapes in spaces to produce a basic design which could then by worked up into a building later. These simple block sketches were a revelation to El Lissitzky. To simplify the bulk and height of a building down to pencil lines that perhaps only the designer could appreciate was a new and Avant Garde idea. El Lissitzky had no real skill in realistic drawings and had lost interest in buildings. His Graphic Design wasn’t faring much better and he could see Van Ray’s confused glances at his work when there were Cubist prints pinned to the wall. He copied almost exactly the rough sketches of Van Ray.
El Lissitzky was up and running – calling a project that he would carry on for several years – Proun – an acronym for Project for the Affirmation of the New. At the party to celebrate his graduation, Van Ray met a young artist called Vladimir Tatlin. They talked about a desire to abolish the traditionally representational purpose of art and put it to new, more practical uses. They both wanted to put art and design to the service of the Russian Revolution and express the dynamic industrial based experience of life in the twentieth century. The artist and the architect wanted to use functional materials such wood, wire, and metals to create Art. They aimed to communicate with the proletarian masses who were now the powerhouse of the Bolshevik movement and would work together to improve themselves and make Russia great again.
Despite the fact that Van Ray was a foreigner and a rich foreigner at that, he was welcomed by his fellow Communist artists and his enthusiasm to use real ‘honest’ workers’ materials and methods was not seen as in any way condescending. Van Ray and Tatlin worked together combining art and architectural skills to create their work. Van Ray did not feel conned when El Lissitsky stretched inspiration to copying, taking the credit for the new flat drawings originally created by him. He felt honoured to have helped the flamboyant Russian.
His patience must, however have been sorely tried when he showed a piece to Tatlin and saw the gleam of motivation in his eyes. Van Ray had moved on from his pencil drawings and began to emphasize the architectural intentions of his sketches through mimicking metal and wood with his brush and pencil strokes. At the next exhibition held at the Revolutionary Hall in Moscow, Tatlin revealed his Counter-Relief made with plaster, iron, and glass. At the opening Tatlin took the floor himself and without consulting Van Ray explained that they used these materials to: “… strike a basic chord with the working man. The illiterate worker must look to the artist for guidance. He must see the opaque, dull-surfaced piece of sheet iron cut in a triangular shape as a symbol of the way the honest manual labourer can cut through authority and political repression to shatter the transparent fragile glass of ignorance that holds him down!’ At the same exhibition El Lissitzky was exhibiting his new political message with Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge.
Van Ray’s arrival in Holland was met with a deluge of invitations to join Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian in Amsterdam. Van Ray settled into the exciting and experimental atmosphere of the DeStijl studios, thankful for the peaceful creativity that surrounded him, so different from the paranoid idealism in Moscow. Van Ray was not a theorist and this was unusual and slightly suspect to many of the artists and designers in Amsterdam. Mondrian in particular was the adamant inventor and advocate of Neo-Plasticism. Neo-Plasticism embodies Mondrian's vision of an ideal, abstract art form he felt was suited to the modern era. He described Neo-Plasticism as a reductive approach to artmaking that stripped away traditional elements of art, such as perspective and representation, utilizing only a series of primary colours and straight lines. Mondrian envisioned that the principles of Neo-Plasticism would be transplanted from the medium of painting to other art forms, including architecture and design, providing the basis of the transformation of the human environment sought by De Stijl artists.
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Max van Ray was born in 1895 in Edam, Holland. In addition to having inherited incomes, his parents were teachers and in1900 his mother visited the Centennial Exhibition in Amsterdam and saw an exhibit of educational blocks created by Friedrich Frøebel. The blocks, known as Frøebel Gifts were the foundation of his innovative kindergarten curriculum.
She bought a set of blocks for Max. These were geometrically shaped and could be assembled in various combinations to form three-dimensional compositions. This is how van Ray described the influence of these exercises on his approach to design. There was a general supposition that Max would become a teacher, but he recoiled from joining his parents in the ranks of the bourgeois middle classes of Edam. Van Ray announced that architecture would be his future and being in possession of his own trust fund, decided to travel to Germany to try for a place at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt. In September 1912 he enrolled onto a course of architectural engineering along with a Russian he had met in the foyer. The Russian was El Lissitzky. "For several years I sat at the little kindergarten table-top and played with the cube, the sphere and the triangle. These smooth wooden maple blocks are in my fingers to this day. What I learned has permeated my whole concept of how to create."
There was a general supposition that Max would become a teacher, but he recoiled from joining his parents in the ranks of the bourgeois middle classes of Edam.
Van Ray announced that architecture would be his future and being in possession of his own trust fund, decided to travel to Germany to try for a place at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt.
In September 1912 he enrolled onto a course of architectural engineering along with a Russian he had met in the foyer. The Russian was El Lissitzky.
Between 1913 and 1914 van Ray became fascinated by the news of unrest in El Lissitzky’s home country, Russia. When World War 1 broke out in 1914, his parents, fearful of a German invasion left Holland for Switzerland and van Ray followed El Lissitzky to Moscow. He enrolled as a student of engineering and architecture at the Riga Technical Institute and received his diploma in 1918 with the degree of Bachelor of Architecture. He enrolled as a student of engineering and architecture at the Riga Technical Institute and received his diploma in 1918 with the degree of Bachelor of Architecture.
Van Ray found sketching a natural part of his Architectural programme. The concept of drawing existing buildings and then moving straight to the drawing board to create a masterpiece was not natural. Instead he used charcoal and soft pencil to create geometrical shapes in spaces to produce a basic design which could then by worked up into a building later.
These simple block sketches were a revelation to El Lissitzky. To simplify the bulk and height of a building down to pencil lines that perhaps only the designer could appreciate was a new and Avant Garde idea. El Lissitzky had no real skill in realistic drawings and had lost interest in buildings.
His Graphic Design wasn’t faring much better and he could see Van Ray’s confused glances at his work when there were Cubist prints pinned to the wall.
He copied almost exactly the rough sketches of Van Ray.
El Lissitzky was up and running – calling a project that he would carry on for several years – Proun – an acronym for
Project for the Affirmation of the New.
At the party to celebrate his graduation, Van Ray met a young artist called Vladimir Tatlin.
They talked about a desire to abolish the traditionally representational purpose of art and put it to new, more practical uses. They both wanted to put art and design to the service of the Russian Revolution and express the dynamic industrial based experience of life in the twentieth century. The artist and the architect wanted to use functional materials such wood, wire, and metals to create Art. They aimed to communicate with the proletarian masses who were now the powerhouse of the Bolshevik movement and would work together to improve themselves and make Russia great again. Despite the fact that Van Ray was a foreigner and a rich foreigner at that, he was welcomed by his fellow Communist artists and his enthusiasm to use real ‘honest’ workers’ materials and methods was not seen as in any way condescending. Van Ray and Tatlin worked together combining art and architectural skills to create their work.
Van Ray did not feel conned when El Lissitsky stretched inspiration to copying, taking the credit for the new flat drawings originally created by him. He felt honoured to have helped the flamboyant Russian. His patience must, however have been sorely tried when he showed a piece to Tatlin and saw the gleam of motivation in his eyes. Van Ray had moved on from his pencil drawings and began to emphasize the architectural intentions of his sketches through mimicking metal and wood with his brush and pencil strokes.
At the next exhibition held at the Revolutionary Hall in Moscow, Tatlin revealed his Counter-Relief made with plaster, iron, and glass. At the opening Tatlin took the floor himself and without consulting Van Ray explained that they used these materials to: “… strike a basic chord with the working man. The illiterate worker must look to the artist for guidance. He must see the opaque, dull-surfaced piece of sheet iron cut in a triangular shape as a symbol of the way the honest manual labourer can cut through authority and political repression to shatter the transparent fragile glass of ignorance that holds him down!’ At the same exhibition El Lissitzky was exhibiting his new political message with Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge.
Van Ray’s arrival in Holland was met with a deluge of invitations to join Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian in Amsterdam. Van Ray settled into the exciting and experimental atmosphere of the DeStijl studios, thankful for the peaceful creativity that surrounded him, so different from the paranoid idealism in Moscow.
Van Ray was not a theorist and this was unusual and slightly suspect to many of the artists and designers in Amsterdam. Mondrian in particular was the adamant inventor and advocate of Neo-Plasticism.
Neo-Plasticism embodies Mondrian's vision of an ideal, abstract art form he felt was suited to the modern era. He described Neo-Plasticism as a reductive approach to artmaking that stripped away traditional elements of art, such as perspective and representation, utilizing only a series of primary colours and straight lines. Mondrian envisioned that the principles of Neo-Plasticism would be transplanted from the medium of painting to other art forms, including architecture and design, providing the basis of the transformation of the human environment sought by De Stijl artists.
Van Ray – bolstered by his private income, and able to fund his own lifestyle and work, followed along with Mondrain’s almost enforced restriction to horizontal and vertical lines. He had put the slights and snubs and downright disrespect shown in Russia behind him and was enjoying the peaceful creative atmosphere of the Amsterdam studios.
But this was not to last for long and Van Ray was to discover that the ambition and self-importance of artists knows no equal in the creative world.
Looking back through prints and sketches of his work in Russia he was inspired to create some personal work – actually for his own studio walls using – horror of horrors – diagonals
Mondrain was livid. He burst into Van Ray’s studio, tore the drawings from the wall and screamed, ‘Is a diagonal an appropriate shape to appear in an abstract painting? Can’t you see that you are on your own here? Domination of the individual is the obstacle to development!’ Van Ray wanted to reply that it was this sort of narrow minded dogmatism that was leading to good artists being forced out of Russia as they spoke, but he could see that Mondrian was under some stress. Advocates of the DeStijl movement promoted the communal and demoted the individual – promoting a universal style that would be recognized exclusively as the work of DeStijl. Van Ray’s little sketches and prints were an affront to this communality. Van Ray – considering himself to be a very minor player in the De Stijl world – felt he had let down a great artist and philosopher and took down what remained of his work, vowing to toe the line in future. He forgot, however to wipe his plates, leaving them in the print room, which is where they were discovered by Theo van Doesburg. Van Doesburg had written and edited every one of the thus far 54 editions of the influential art magazine De Stijl. Yet the name on every art lover’s lips was Mondrian and the name on every society invitation was also Mondrian. Van Doesburg felt he needed and deserved some recognition and to do so he must publicly best his erstwhile friend. He must contradict and deride while seeming simply to paint.
Van Doesburg said: ‘The expressive possibilities of Neoplasticism are limited to two dimensions and are further limited by horizaontals and verticals. We are in a new, efficient age – let us take the shortest route – let us take the diagonal.’ Van Ray might have commented that the shortest route was evidently stealing someone else’s ideas had Mondrian not literally fought with van Doesburg on the gallery floor and started a quarrel that would last for years. Van Ray – tricked and mistreated a second time, but quietly impressed with his own ability to start a fight and a new art form in one move, packed his bags and headed for Dessau – the new home of the Bauhaus. Despite the misappropriation of his work by others, Van Ray was welcomed as a colleague by Ittens, Gropius, Moholy Nagy, Kandinsky, the Albers, Breuer and Schlemmer.
Unlike De Stijl, the Bauhaus was first and foremost an Art School, the concepts and styles based on the beliefs of Johannes Ittens, which concentrated on practical formal analysis, in particular on the contrasting properties of forms, colours and materials.
Van Ray was a natural teacher and experimental facilitator to the students although he shrank away from Hannes Meyer who headed the architecture department, and, as an active communist, incorporated his Marxist ideals through student organizations and classroom programs. The contradictions and paranoia he felt an over-riding issue in Moscow had alienated any political evangelism.
Despite the diagonal controversy in Amsterdam, Van Ray saw no reason why he shouldn’t pursue his interest in advancing the notion of further engagement in two dimensional form. The Bauhaus – led by the architectural and furniture bias – had done so in three dimensions, but in the new discipline – Graphic Design – it had not been investigated with any form of organisation.
His work in 1927 – presented to Ittens and Gropius was not a new concept as such, but was a point on which the group could focus and re-edit their original manifesto.
The Nazi developments in Germany were already putting pressure on the designers at the Bauhaus by the end of the 1920s and having experienced similar political intervention in Russia, Van Ray left Germany and followed his friend Mies Van Der Rohe to the Illinois Institute of Art & Technology in Chicago, where he spent the rest of the 30s and the 40s in his favourite occupation, teaching art and communication. The students were fascinated by his breadth of knowledge and influences and he rose to Head of the School of Communication by 1946. His teaching timetable left him time to experiment with his new areas of interest, typography and photo-graphics – instructing a number of young students such as Herb Lubalin and Paul Rand who would move on to great careers in the profession.
At a time when many would have taken an easy retirement, Van Ray moved to Switzerland in 1949, intrigued by the new International Style that was being developed in the only neutral European country left with the finances and resources to re-build the experimental forward thinking art and design movements that had excited Europe in the pre-war years. He came to Zurich with a unprecedented enthusiasm and ability in the new area of photo-graphics and introduced the young Josef Muller Brockmann to this modern and exciting creative method. He also introduced Brockmann and the Linotype-Hell directors to the Sans Serif Grotesk faces that were becoming so popular in the United States. Three posters that Van Ray created for the new Swiss Tourist Board are all that is left of his time working in Zurich. He used the bold, clear Grotesk fonts he had brought from the USA and incorporated the bright colours and Hi-Resolution photo-graphics that would become synonymous with what Muller-Brockmann would introduce to the world as his own ‘invention’ – Swiss Design.
Van Ray – appalled to yet again see his own work misappropriated by more ambitious individuals returned to the USA and spent his final years tinkering with naive paintings of cans of food that provided such jolly backdrops to his shopping trips – they were bland and everyday, but fun to create – he died safe in the knowledge that nobody would want to copy those