ERNŐ RUBIK AND HIS MAGIC CUBE

Ernő Rubik grows from a solitary but curious, puzzle-loving child into a determined adult.

Born in Budapest in 1944, Ernő liked to manipulate shapes, playing with “tangrams, pentominoes, and pentacubes”—all depicted in the art. He appreciated nature, too, and as he grew up, he studied architecture and art and became a teacher. While building models to help his students learn about three-dimensional shapes, he became intrigued by cubes: “Would it be possible to build a big cube out of smaller cubes that moved around each other and stayed connected?” He started with eight cubes, attaching them with paper clips and rubber bands. That didn’t work, but he persevered and subsequently devised the 26-cube model. But how to hold it together? Ernő was inspired when he observed a rushing river moving around smooth pebbles. Similarly, his small cubes could move around a fixed mechanical center—and finally, he added colors on each side. Ernő was just 29 when he invented the Rubik’s Cube in 1974; more than a billion people would eventually play with his toy. The straightforward narrative ends with backmatter noting that Rubik didn’t intend to create a puzzle, and when he realized what it was, it took him a month to solve it. The bright, naïve collage artwork is quirky and inventive: Rubik’s head is sometimes cubic, and perspective is at times skewed.

A whimsical tribute to the maker of the famous, frustrating, and absorbing puzzle.