Bruno Bischofberger

Bruno Bischofberger (born 1940) is an art dealer and gallerist from Zurich, Switzerland, 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.

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.

In 1965 he held an exhibition of American pop artists including: Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Tom Wesselmann and Claes Oldenburg. The following year Bischofberger was the first gallery to show the work of Gerhard Richter 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 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, 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 and Francesco Clemente in 1984.

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