Manfred Bischoff:

June 6, 2002 -September 22, 2002

A fundamental premise of the Artist in Residence program at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is that resident artists must find some aspect of the Museum to spark new thinking and inspire their work. The German artist Manfred Bischoff was a resident at the Museum in the month of February 2002. He spent time wandering through the collection galleries, visiting the conservation labs, the archives and ultimately he decided to focus his attention on a fresco of Hercules by Piero della Francesca that is located in the Early Italian Room on the first floor. In 1900, Piero della Francesca's work was just being discovered by scholars and the public. Mrs. Gardner's purchase of the fresco thus anticipates the phenomenal new interest in Piero's strange and enigmatic images.

Bishoff was drawn to the natural, unpretentious grandeur of the Piero fresco and decided to research it in the Museum archives. "Among other things I found a wonderful sketch, a working drawing by a restorer. This would also become my working sketch. A copy of it appears in the introduction of the Collection's handbook. Thank you, restorer! Searching a little more, I found the sentence, "not wait to act if you are ready." It can be found written on the façade of Piero's birthplace, in San Sepolcro, from where the Hercules fresco was taken. Between the phrase "not wait to act," and "if you are ready," is the word "wait." That is it." That is Orson.

The artist often cites the tradition of high art and then makes a broach or a ring out of it. The viewers to the exhibition will find evidence of this in a broach entitled Madonna del Parto inspired by a Piero della Franceca's fresco in Montecchi, Italy or in a ring called Spanish Chimera which makes reference to a Picasso drawing and the Chimera lion in Arezzo, Italy. Furthermore, there is a play between painting, drawing and sculpture in Bishoff's work. Instead of making drawings that function as a scale model, Bishoff executes rough drawings or small paintings that exist independently from his jewelry. These are on view along side the artworks in the special exhibition gallery.

Manfred Bischoff is an artist and a superb craftsman. In our Post-Industrial Age of Reproduction and Ready Made Art he is a goldsmith, a hero who is superbly gifted in making work with his hands. He will coax an olive leaf into a donkey's ear or take a twig of coral and make it symbolize anything. These jewels are small highly lyrical and sensual works of art. And the best thing is that you can wear them!
Born in 1947, Bischoff worked in Munich and Berlin before moving to Tuscany, where he now resides. He has been the recipient of many awards, including the Françoise van den Bosch Prize, Amsterdam, the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, Munich, and a scholarship for study in Florence. For more than 20 years, Bischoff has created sculpture that can be found in collections around the world, including the Danner-Stiftung Collection, Munich, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Power House Museum, Sydney, and private collections throughout Europe and the United States.

Throughout his career, Bischoff has been widely written about in leading art publications and his work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including: On the Road, Akademie der Schönen Künste, Munich; Brooching It Diplomatically: A Tribute to Madeleine K. Albright, Helen Drutt, Philadelphia, traveling exhibition; and, A Moveable Feast 1964-1994, HWD Collection, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

This exhibition has been curated and organized by the Gardner Museum's Curator of Contemporary Art, Pieranna Cavalchini. A publication designed by the artist will be available in the Gardner Museum Shop in the month of August. The book will be published by Schlebruggee Editor, Vienna. It will include a preface by Gardner Museum Director Anne Hawley, an interview with the artist by Cavalchini, and an essay by art historian, Cornelia Lauf.