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Born: 1864 – Bowmen, Austria
Died: 1929 – Arroyo Seco, California
Painter, ceramist. Born in Austria in the small town of Bomen on Jan 14, 1864. Bischoff studied art in Vienna before immigrating to the U.S. in 1885. He worked as a decorator of china in a New York factory and later continued this line of work in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Fostoria, Ohio. In 1892 he moved to Dearborn, Michigan where he produced ceramic works and taught china decorating. He first visited California in 1900, but it was six years later before he and his family moved to Los Angeles. Bischoff established a studio in the Blanchard Building and in 1908 built a palatial Italian Renaissance style studio-home in the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena.
He brought with him a reputation of one as the nation’s greatest china painters; however, in California he turned to painting impressionist landscapes of the desert around Palm Springs and the poppy fields near the Arroyo Seco.
His subjects also include floral still lifes, harbor scenes in San Pedro, coastals and Zion National Park (done in 1928). Bischoff’s early works were softer and more muted that his later works, which often show the influence of Expressionism and the Fauves.
Exhibited: World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 (ceramics); Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St Louis, 1904 (ceramics).Awards: Bronze and silver medals, Panama California International Exposition, San Diego, 1915; Huntington Prize, California Club, 1924.
Works Held: Laguna Beach Museum of Art; Gardena California High School; Oakland Museum; Terra Museum, Evanston, IL.
View our current Early California paintings available in the gallery.
