In the late 1960s, he was one of the foremost sculptors of his time,[1] routinely mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Bruce Nauman, Robert Smithson, Eva Hesse and Richard Serra.

From 1957 to 1961, Bill Bollinger studied aeronautical engineering at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

In 1961, the year he identifies as the beginning of his artistic career, Bollinger moved to New York City where he briefly studied painting at the Art Students League.

There is no reason to use color, to polish, to bend, to weld, if it is not necessary to do so.”[3] For the Channel Pieces from 1965 to 1968, he joined together extruded aluminum profiles to create works with additive and rhythmic properties.

They allowed him to lend expression to the painterly and graphic questions of space and the fundamental laws of physics.