Bruno Bischofberger is an art dealer

Art dealer

An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art. Art dealers' professional associations serve to set high standards for accreditation or membership and to support art exhibitions and shows.-Role:...

 and gallerist from Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, and a major figure in the international art market for several decades. He is especially known for bringing American pop art to Europe in the 1960s, and American Neo-Expressionism in the 1980s, his long association with Andy Warhol, and for expanding the use of big money in the European contemporary art market.

Early life

Bruno Bischofberger was born in 1940. The son of a Zurich doctor, he began collecting antiques at an early age. He studied at the University of Zurich, with a doctoral dissertation on Swiss folk art. In 1963 Bischofberger opened his first gallery in Zurich. In 1972 he won several ice-sled chute races at the famously fast and dangerous Cresta Run, in Saint Moritz.

Activities as Gallerist

In 1965 he held an exhibition of American pop artists including: Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

, Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...

, Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...

, Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...

, Tom Wesselmann

Tom Wesselmann

Tom Wesselmann was an American artist associated with the Pop art movement who worked in painting, collage and sculpture.-Early years:...

 and Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...

. The following year Bischofberger was the first gallery to show the work of Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.- Biography :Gerhard Richter was born in...

 outside Germany. In 1968 he entered into a “first right of refusal” contract with Andy Warhol, which lasted until the artists death in 1987.

Bischofberger introduced Warhol’s work to collectors Philippe Niarchos

Philippe Niarchos

Philip Niarchos was born in 1954, the eldest son of the Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos and Eugenia Livanos , herself the elder daughter of Stavros Niarchos' rival Stavros G...

 and Peter Brant, whom he had met as teenagers in St Moritz. In 1969, Bischofberger and Brant became the founding financial backers of Interview Magazine, started by Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

, and in 1970 produced Warhol's movie “L‘Amour“.

He commissioned series of works from Warhol such as the "Mao's" in 1971, the "Children Paintings" in 1982 and the "Collaboration Paintings" by Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...

 and Francesco Clemente

Francesco Clemente

Francesco Clemente is an Italian and American contemporary artist. Influenced by thinkers as diverse as Gregory Bateson, William Blake, Allen Ginsberg, and J Krishnamurti, the art of Francesco Clemente is inclusive and nomadic, crossing many borders, intellectual and geographical.Dividing his time...

 in 1984.

In the late 60s and early 70s, Bischofberger organized Pop-Art exhibitions, but also showed artists of the Nouveau Réalisme style such as Yves Klein

Yves Klein

Yves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...

 and Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...

 (later Bischofberger publishes Tinguely's Catalogue Raisonné). In 1966 he is the first to show works by Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.- Biography :Gerhard Richter was born in...

 outside of Germany.

In the 70s follow a series of one-man exhibitions and installations of Minimal and Conceptual artists: Dan Flavin

Dan Flavin

Dan Flavin was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures.-Early life and career:...

, Donald Judd

Donald Judd

Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism . In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy...

, On Kawara

On Kawara

is a Japanese conceptual artist living in New York City since 1965. He has shown in many solo and group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1976.-Early life:After graduating from Kariya High School in 1951, Kawara moved to Tokyo...

, Joseph Kosuth

Joseph Kosuth

Joseph Kosuth , is an American conceptual artist. Kosuth lives in New York and Rome.-Early life and career:Kosuth was born in Toledo, Ohio. He attended the Toledo Museum School of Design from 1955 to 1962 and studied privately under the Belgian painter Line Bloom Draper. In 1963, Kosuth enrolled at...

, Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt

Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....

, Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman is a contemporary American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives in Galisteo, New Mexico....

 and others. Works by modern classics such as Picasso, Matisse and Léger are added to the gallery‘s program.

In the 1980s, Bischofberger's gallery became known for showing works from the Italian, German, and American "Neo-Expressionist" painters such as Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...

, Julian Schnabel

Julian Schnabel

Julian Schnabel is an American artist and filmmaker. In the 1980s, Schnabel received international media attention for his "plate paintings"—large-scale paintings set on broken ceramic plates....

, David Salle

David Salle

David Salle is an American painter who helped define postmodern sensibility by combining figuration with a varied pictorial language of multi-imagery...

, Francesco Clemente

Francesco Clemente

Francesco Clemente is an Italian and American contemporary artist. Influenced by thinkers as diverse as Gregory Bateson, William Blake, Allen Ginsberg, and J Krishnamurti, the art of Francesco Clemente is inclusive and nomadic, crossing many borders, intellectual and geographical.Dividing his time...

, Enzo Cucchi

Enzo Cucchi

Enzo Cucchi is an Italian painter. A native of Morro d'Alba, province of Ancona, he was a key member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, along with fellow countrymen Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Nicola De Maria, and Sandro Chia...

, and George Condo

George Condo

George Condo is an American contemporary visual artist.-Life and career:Condo works in the medium of painting and sculpture...

; as well as showing Andy Warhol, Miquel Barceló

Miquel Barcelo

Miquel Barceló is a Spanish painter from Felanitx, Majorca.-Career:After having studied at the Arts and Crafts School of Palma for two years, he enrolled at the Fine Arts School of Barcelona in 1974. A year later he returned to Mallorca to participate in the happenings and actions of protest of...

, Peter Halley

Peter Halley

-Early Life and Career:Halley first came to prominence as a result of the geometric paintings rendered in intense day-glo colours that he produced in the early 1980s. His practice as an artist is usually associated with minimalism, neo-geo, and neo-conceptualism...

 and Mike Bidlo

Mike Bidlo

Michael "Mike" Bidlo is an American painter, sculptor and performance artist.-Life and work:Bidlo was born in Chicago, Illinois and studied at the University of Illinois , Southern Illinois University Carbondale , and at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York,...

. During this time he would fly from Zurich to New York on the Concorde twice a month to visit galleries and artist's studios and buy up work to send back. In 1982 Bischofberger became Basquiat's dealer for Europe, and was his most consistent dealer and source of money from then until 1987. In the autumn of 1982, Bischofberger introduced Basquiat to Warhol.

Today Bruno Bischofberger additionally represents the contemporary architect and designer Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass was an Italian architect and designer of the late 20th century. His body of designs included furniture, jewellery, glass, lighting and office machine design.-Early career:...

, and gave British artist Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst

Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...

 a one-person exhibition in 1997. Bischofberger's gallery publishes books on many of the above artists and is instrumental in organizing exhibitions, Museum retrospectives, etc. In 2010 his gallery put on a major two-part overview of 1980s painting in Europe and New York, curated and presented by the Kunsthalle Bielefeld

Kunsthalle Bielefeld

The Kunsthalle Bielefeld is a modern art museum in Bielefeld, Germany. It was designed by Philip Johnson in 1968, and paid for by the businessman and art patron Rudolf August Oetker.-Collection and exhibitions:...

.

Bischofberger was portrayed by Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...

 in Julian Schnabel

Julian Schnabel

Julian Schnabel is an American artist and filmmaker. In the 1980s, Schnabel received international media attention for his "plate paintings"—large-scale paintings set on broken ceramic plates....

's 1996 film Basquiat.

External links

• Gallerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich and St. Moritz.
• "Gallerie Bruno Bischofberger" on ArtNet.