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About

Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth and Ursula Hauser, who were joined in 2000 by Partner and President Marc Payot. A family business with a global outlook, Hauser & Wirth has expanded over the past 29 years to include outposts in Hong Kong, London, New York, Los Angeles, Somerset, Gstaad, St. Moritz, Southampton (NY), Menorca, and Monaco. The gallery represents over 80 artists and estates who have been instrumental in shaping its identity over the past quarter century, and who are the inspiration for Hauser & Wirth’s diverse range of activities that engage with art, education, conservation and sustainability.

Hauser & Wirth has built a reputation for its dedication to artists and support of visionary artistic projects worldwide. In addition to presenting a dynamic schedule of exhibitions, the gallery collaborates with renowned curators to present museum quality surveys and invests considerable resources in new scholarship and research. Since its earliest days, the gallery has mounted historically significant exhibitions. The inaugural exhibition in 1992 took place at Hauser & Wirth’s first gallery, located in the first-floor apartment of an Art Deco villa in the heart of Zurich; it united mobiles and gouaches by Alexander Calder with sculptures and paintings by Joan Miró. Since then, the gallery has continued to forge an academically rigorous, ambitious program of historic exhibitions, providing a natural home for a number of major 20th-century European and American artist estates, and encouraging a continued and engaging discourse around their oeuvres. These include Louise Bourgeois, The Estate of Philip Guston, The Eva Hesse Estate, Allan Kaprow Estate, Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, The Estate of Jason Rhoades, Dieter Roth Estate and The Estate of David Smith.

Hauser & Wirth is widely admired for a sympathetic approach to restoring historic buildings and giving them a new lease of life as contemporary art spaces that invigorate surrounding communities. From the conversion of its first permanent venue in the former Löwenbräu brewery building that became Hauser & Wirth Zürich in 1996, the gallery has developed and sensitively restored existing structures that respond to their environments, connecting international art with local culture through architecture. In 2003, an Edward Lutyens-designed former bank on Piccadilly became Hauser & Wirth’s first London gallery, while a decade later, in 2013, the legendary Roxy discotheque and skating rink became the gallery’s second New York space. In recent years, the gallery has renovated Durslade Farm, a collection of dilapidated farm buildings in rural Somerset, into world-class art center Hauser & Wirth Somerset, as well as redeveloping a 100,000 sq. ft. former flour mill, the Globe Mills complex, in downtown Los Angeles in 2016. In 2018, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles was awarded Los Angeles Conservancy’s highest honor, the Chair’s Award, which recognizes the importance of preserving the historic places that make Los Angeles unique. In 2020, Hauser & Wirth opened its first purpose-built gallery space at 542 West 22nd Street in New York’s West Chelsea art district. In July 2021, the gallery will open a 1,500 sq.m. art center on Menorca after a two-year conservation project, sensitively repurposing existing historic buildings on the island with architect Luis Laplace.

As a publisher specializing in books on modern and contemporary art, Hauser & Wirth has published over 120 titles in its quarter-century history of exhibitions, projects and research. Hauser & Wirth’s publishing activity, brought together under Hauser & Wirth Publishers, consists of monographs, artists’ books, historic exhibition catalogues, collections of artists’ writings and catalogues raisonnés. Hauser & Wirth Publishers works with academics and curators to bring current, leading research to its readers.

A commitment to education underpins the Hauser & Wirth exhibition roster. Every show is accompanied by a series of lectures, interactive seminars, innovative workshops, and special events developed for a range of ages and target audiences. These programs are intended to inspire creativity and foster a passion for contemporary art, nature and architecture within all areas of the community. In Somerset, the gallery has created strong links with local schools, universities and charities, and also provides courses for adults and special interest groups. Hauser & Wirth Somerset welcomes around 100 school groups every year. Events include an annual summer school for young people in collaboration with Bristol Old Vic Theatre, seasonal workshops for adults, such as basket weaving, and Open Farm Sunday, a yearly initiative that opens Durslade Farm to visitors, as well as the annual Pumpkin Festival in celebration of the harvest. This public engagement is mirrored in Los Angeles where the learning program aims to instigate a dialogue between the works on view and the city’s diverse audiences.

Food comprises a pivotal element of the experience of Hauser & Wirth’s galleries. Bringing together Iwan and Manuela Wirth’s passion for art with their enthusiasm for hospitality, gastronomy and community, the galleries sit alongside a series of bars and restaurants conceived as social gathering spaces. Roth Bar & Grill in Somerset and Manuela restaurant in Los Angeles provide informal and convivial atmospheres where honest, seasonal and locally-sourced food is served. Roth Bar & Grill works closely with local farmers, gamekeepers and gardeners, to use entirely local and ethical British produce. Similarly, at Manuela, an urban kitchen garden provides the restaurant with herbs, fruits and vegetables as well as a chicken house and run for the restaurant’s 11 rare-breed chickens.

Also onsite at Hauser & Wirth Somerset is Durslade Farmhouse, a six-bedroom guesthouse within a Grade II-listed farm building, full of character and bold twists that celebrate the natural antiquity of the building. More recently, the Wirths opened The Fife Arms in Braemar, Scotland, an imposing Arts & Crafts hotel that underwent extensive restoration to return the building to its former glory. With their deep-rooted investment in community, history, wildlife and landscape, each of the Wirths’ ventures is embedded in the unique heritage and traditions of its local culture.

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Locations

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Martin Creed and Manuela Wirth at Hauser & Wirth London, Coppermill, 2007

25 Years

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, Hauser & Wirth launched 25 Years, an interactive, digital chronology that traces the journey of Hauser & Wirth and the artists who have shaped it through personal stories and a wealth of never-before-seen archival and visual material. As the first site of its kind, 25 Years offers insight into the gallery’s history and wide-ranging projects, while encouraging interaction with the artists and their wider footprint. It provides an invaluable resource for an audience interested in learning more about contemporary art and the Hauser & Wirth story.

Explore the 25 Years website
Oudolf Field in Summer 2

Philanthropy

The Wirths are benefactors of museums and international art projects, and contribute to a range of charities supporting the arts, architecture, the environment, conservation, community, and education. They are ongoing supporters of the Reykjavik Arts Festival and the Bruton Museum situated on Bruton High Street, as well as The Holburne Museum in Bath where they made a contribution towards the museum’s contemporary program with a gallery space named The Wirth Gallery.

Iwan and Manuela Wirth have partially funded the ongoing restoration of St. Margaret’s Church in Braemar, and contribute towards the River Dee Trust, Aberdeenshire and the North Atlantic Salmon Fund (NASF). They donated a 2-acre plot of land to the local council in Somerset as part of a community garden project, the Durslade Walled Garden. They are both supporters of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Somerset Wildlife Trust, Human Rights Watch and NSPCC, and have an ongoing commitment to Christoph Schlingensief’s Operndorf project in Burkina Faso, through an annual donation allocated to education programs, food and the building and running of a school.

Marc Payot is an active collector and arts patron whose engagement extends from small education-focused organizations such as the children’s arts initiative Time in Kids NYC, to major museums in New York: New Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He served on the Selection Committee of Frieze New York between 2012 and 2016.

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Hauser & Wirth Publishers

Since its founding in 1992, Hauser & Wirth Publishers has grown into a dynamic imprint that produces more than 20 titles per year, with a special focus on artists’ archives and writings. It creates unique, object-like books that encourage an understanding and appreciation of modern and contemporary art, with a backlist also comprising monographs, artists’ books, publications focused on important private collections, and exhibition catalogues – often bringing new and overlooked aspects of an artist’s creative practice into focus. By commissioning original, in-depth scholarship to give thoughtful insight, Hauser & Wirth Publishers aims to craft accessible, lasting records of artists’ work, ideas, and exhibitions.

In 2019, Hauser & Wirth Publishers opened a stand-alone global headquarters and flagship bookshop in the historic center of Zurich, Switzerland, which operates alongside a parallel enterprise in New York. The Zurich headquarters occupies the former home of the Oprecht & Helbling bookshop and the legendary Europa Verlag publishing house. Today it serves as an international hub for research and scholarship, led by Chief Editor Dr. Michaela Unterdörfer, who has helmed Hauser & Wirth Publishers since 2005.

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Presidents

Iwan and Manuela Wirth

Iwan and Manuela Wirth co-founded Hauser & Wirth with Manuela’s mother, Ursula Hauser, in Zurich in 1992.

In 2015 Iwan and Manuela were each awarded a Doctor of Letters (Hons) by Bath Spa University. In 2016, Iwan was appointed to the Board of Trustees at CalArts, California and the Swiss Institute, New York. He has served as a Trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts, London since 2014, and the Maria Lassnig Foundation. Iwan is a member of a number of committees including the Swiss Cultural Fund, the Frieze Masters selection committee, the Council of the Serpentine Gallery and the South Asian Acquisitions Committee at Tate. He was the 2007 Honoree at the Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art Benefit. Manuela is on the Board of The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh and a Trustee of The Royal Drawing School. Iwan and Manuela Wirth were jointly ranked as the number 1 most powerful and influential figures in the art world in ArtReview’s 2015 ‘Power 100.’

In addition to their duties as Presidents of Hauser & Wirth, Manuela and Iwan Wirth are also the co-founders of a hospitality business that encompasses the Roth Bar & Grill restaurant and Durslade Farmhouse in Somerset, Manuela restaurant in Los Angeles and The Fife Arms Hotel in Scotland.

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Partner and President

Marc Payot

Marc Payot has worked closely with Iwan and Manuela Wirth for the better part of two decades. Helping to guide the evolution of the gallery, Payot has played a central role in the establishment of Hauser & Wirth in the United States and worldwide.

Payot oversees all of Hauser & Wirth’s activities in America, leading a staff of over 80 people between New York and Los Angeles; working intensively on a day-to-day basis with gallery artists and estates; guiding a robust program of exhibitions, events, publications, and fair participation; and fostering extraordinary working relationships with museum colleagues, cultural leaders, patrons, scholars, and collectors. He joined the gallery in 2000 as a Director in Zurich after having served on the management team of the Art Basel fair and as a director at Galerie Bob Van Orsouw. Named a Partner of Hauser & Wirth in 2004, he moved to New York City four years later to establish its American presence. Since opening its first US space in an historic Upper East Side townhouse in 2009, Payot has overseen the creation of two temporary spaces in the West Chelsea arts district. He is now leading the development of Hauser & Wirth’s first purpose-built gallery building at 542 West 22nd Street.