Bruno Bischofberger

Swiss art dealer, collector and curator (b. 1 January 1940, Zurich). Bruno Bischofberger has been running an eponymous independent gallery in Zurich for over sixty years, best known for his close association with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat and for championing numerous other notable American and European conceptualists, minimalists, neo-expressionists and pop artists. He resides in a house on Lake Zurich designed by renowned Italian architect Ettore Sottsass (1917—2007). Bischofberger studied art history, archaeology and ethnography at the University of Zurich, continuing his education at the Universities of Bonn and Munich. In 1963, Bruno launched his gallery on Pelikanstrasse, called initially "city-galerie." In 1965, Bischofberger hosted the gallery's debut Pop Art exhibition, featuring Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Tom Wesselmann, Claes Oldenburg and Jasper Johns, among others. Bruno met Andy Warhol in New York City in 1966, soon befriending him. Two years later, Warhol allowed Bischofberger to pick several early unpublished works; subsequently, he granted Bruno exclusive "first refusal" rights on all future artworks, lasting until Andy's death in 1987. Bruno Bischofberger continued showcasing exported contemporary art throughout the 1970s, expanding to minimalism, conceptualism and Land Art and featuring Sol Lewitt, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Bruce Nauman, Joseph Kosuth and On Kawara. He also became a representative of several Nouveau Réalisme artists, including Yves Klein, Daniel Spoerri and Jean Tinguely. In 1981, Bruno Bischofberger visited a New York/New Wave exhibition curated by Diego Cortez at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, Queens. The large-scale group show featured over 100 artists, including David Byrne, William S. Burroughs, Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith Haring, Fab 5 Freddy, Futura 2000, and Ann Magnuson, to name just a few. Most importantly, Bischofberger first saw Jean-Michel Basquiat's works there. By 1982, Bruno became his primary international dealer, representing Basquiat for the rest of his life. Bruno continued to explore and promote other Neo-Expressionist artists in the 1980s, including Miquel Barceló, George Condo, Francesco Clemente (2), Enzo Cucchi, Tom Dokoupil, David Salle and Julian Schnabel. In 2013, Galerie Bruno Bischofberger relocated to a new building on the renovated factory in Männedorf, Zurich.