Bruno Bischofberger, the Swiss dealer who helped bring American Pop art into European view and later backed Jean-Michel Basquiat, has died at 86.
Galerie Bruno Bischofberger said he died on Saturday. In its obituary, the gallery described him as a figure who quietly shaped the art history of the second half of the 20th century, influencing artists, collectors, curators, and museum audiences without courting attention.
Born in 1940 in Appenzell, Bischofberger came from a family rooted in Swiss public life and the arts. He studied art history, archaeology, and folk art at the University of Zurich beginning in 1958, then continued at the universities of Bonn and Munich. In 1963, he opened galleries in Zurich and St. Moritz, becoming the first dealer to establish a base in Switzerland’s Engadine.
Two years later, his Zurich gallery presented an early exhibition of American Pop artists, including Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Tom Wesselman. That program helped position Bischofberger as an early European advocate for a movement that was still consolidating its international reach. Exhibitions devoted to Gerhard Richter, Frank Stella, and Sol LeWitt followed.
His relationship with Andy Warhol became one of the defining partnerships of his career. Warhol appeared in Bischofberger’s 1965 Pop art exhibition, though the two did not meet in person until the following year. In 1968, Warhol sold him 11 early hand-painted works, including several from the “Disaster” series. Bischofberger later wrote that he paid what seemed a very high price at the time. Warhol also granted him first rights to every work he made, an arrangement that lasted until the artist’s death in 1987. In 1969, Bischofberger and collector Peter Brant helped Warhol launch Interview magazine.
Bischofberger became one of Art Basel’s first exhibitors when the fair began in 1970, and he remained involved into the 2010s. During the 1970s and 1980s, he also supported Neo Expressionism, including the work of Julian Schnabel, George Condo, and Enzo Cucchi.
He first encountered Basquiat’s work in the 1981 exhibition “New York/New Wave” at PS1, now MoMA PS1, and began representing the artist in 1982 after Basquiat left Annina Nosei Gallery. Basquiat visited Switzerland that year and stayed with Bischofberger, making work in his house. In 1983, Bischofberger helped initiate Warhol’s collaboration with Basquiat, a partnership that also drew Warhol back to painting.
Galerie Bruno Bischofberger closed its St. Moritz space in 2015. Its Zurich complex occupies a 250,000 square-foot former car factory site, and the gallery has not yet said whether it will continue operating after his death.
