Franz Bischoff Biography:

Franz A. Bischoff was a highly regarded American artist who was born January 9, 1864 in Bomen, Austria. In 1885 he immigrated to the United States and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Bischoff studied applied design, watercolor and ceramic decoration while in Europe. Living and working in New York, Fostoria, Ohio and Dearborn, Michigan, he painted beautiful ceramics and remarkable floral paintings earning a reputation as the "King of Rose Painters".

Bischoff decided to visit California in 1900 and eventually relocated to Los Angeles in 1906. Upon arriving, he then started the design and arrangements to build a large and impressive home and studio, in the Italian Renaissance style, in Pasadena that was completed in 1908. Inspired by the California landscape, Bischoff turned his attention from ceramic painting to easel painting -- he painted farms, villages, fishing wharves and coastal seascapes -- he traveled and painted in Utah, the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range and the coast between Laguna Beach and Monterey, California. During his career Franz Bischoff was recognized for a superb use of color and strong compositions, sometimes painting in an impressionist style or a post-impressionist style. One critic commented some of his later works flirted with Expressionism and his use of colors were reminiscent of the Fauvist movement. His plein air landscapes would always show Bischoff's deep respect and reverence for nature.

In 1912 he traveled to London, Paris, Munich, Naples and Rome. He won the Huntington Prize from the California Art Club in 1924. His paintings can be found in the Laguna Beach Museum of Art, the Gardena High School collection, the Oakland Museum and the Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois. Franz Bischoff died in Pasadena, California on February 5, 1929.