Iwan Wirth

Iwan Wirth (born 1970) is a Swiss art dealer, and the president and co-founder of Hauser & Wirth, a contemporary art gallery.[2]

Iwan Wirth
Born1970 (age 49–50)
Zurich, Switzerland[1]
NationalitySwiss
OccupationArt dealer
Years active1990 to present
Known forCo-founder, Hauser & Wirth
Spouse(s)Manuela Hauser (m. 1996)

Life and career

Iwan Wirth was born in 1970[2] and spent his early life in St. Gallen, Switzerland,[3] where his father was an architect and his mother was a schoolteacher.[4] Wirth opened a commercial gallery in 1986 at the age of sixteen,[5] and he began working as a private dealer in Zurich starting in 1990.[6]

Hauser & Wirth
Main article: Hauser & Wirth

In 1992, Wirth opened the Hauser & Wirth gallery together with Manuela and Ursula, heirs to the Fust retail fortune.[7][8]

Other activities

In addition to his activities as an art dealer, Wirth holds a variety of advisory positions, including the following:

From 1998 until 2009, Wirth and David Zwirner operated Zwirner & Wirth, a secondary market business, in New York.[8]

In 2014, Wirth opened an arts complex in Somerset, which includes the restaurant the Roth Bar & Grill, and a guesthouse hotel in the Durslade Farmhouse. The public garden onsite is designed by Piet Oudolf.[7] He later purchased a hotel in Braemar, in Aberdeenshire in Scotland.[12][13] He is also part-owner of 'Manuela', a restaurant at the Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles.[14]

Recognition

In 2015, Iwan Wirth and Manuela Hauser were ranked number one on ArtReview's list of 'most powerful and influential figures in the art world'.[15][16] In 2012, Wirth and his wife endowed a senior lecturer position in modern and contemporary Asian art for the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.[17] In 2015, both were awarded honorary doctorates by Bath Spa University.[18]

Iwan and Manuela Wirth were named one of the 'Top 50 Philanthropists of 2019' by Town & Country,[19] after founding Hauser & Wirth Institute[20] and donating $1 million to Cal State LA through a partnership with Hauser & Wirth.[21]

Personal life

Iwan Wirth married Manuela Hauser, a former teacher, in 1996.[8] They have four children.[22]

They lived in Zurich until 2005, when the family moved to London's Holland Park district. In 2007, the family eventually settled on Somerset as primary residence.[7] They also maintain apartments in London and New York[8] as well as a holiday home on Menorca's Isla del Rey, designed by Luis Laplace.[23]

References
  1. Ergebnis der Suche nach: nid=104170965X (in German). Leipzig; Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Nationalbibliothek. Accessed February 2018.
  2. Nick Clark (23 October 2015). Iwan Wirth: A creative pirate who shares his treasures. The Independent. Accessed August 2018.
  3. Milner, Catherine (11 October 2010). "Iwan Wirth: the dealer who's bigger than Saatchi". ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  4. Rawsthorn, Alice. "The Dealer". Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  5. "Iwan Wirth: A creative pirate who shares his treasures". The Independent. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  6. "The Constant Gardener: Iwan Wirth's Hauser & Wirth Gallery Will Open a 15,000-Plus-Square-Foot Space Downtown This Year". Observer. 17 January 2012. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  7. "The Gentlewoman – Manuela Wirth". thegentlewoman.co.uk. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
  8. Dan Duray (17 January 2012), The Constant Gardener: Iwan Wirth’s Hauser & Wirth Gallery Will Open a 15,000-Plus-Square-Foot Space Downtown This Year The New York Observer.
  9. Board of Trustees California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
  10. Board of Trustees Swiss Institute Contemporary Art New York.
  11. Board of Trustees Royal Academy of Arts.
  12. "'Art world royalty' bring investment to Braemar". Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  13. Klingelfuss, Jessica (23 April 2018). "Art dealers Iwan and Manuela Wirth to open hotel in Scottish highlands". Wallpaper*. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  14. Harris, Jenn (4 March 2016). "Manuela, the restaurant inside the new Hauser Wirth & Schimmel arts complex downtown". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 28 September 2017.
  15. "We Broke Down ArtReview's Power 100 by Race, Gender, Profession, and Place of Birth". Artsy. 2 November 2017.
  16. "Hans Ulrich Obrist tops ArtReview power list". BBC. 20 October 2016.
  17. "How to give it: Iwan Wirth". Financial Times. 10 February 2012. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
  18. "Special honours at Bath Spa University graduation ceremonies". Bath Spa University. 21 July 2015. Archived from the original on 7 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2017.
  19. The Editors (22 May 2019). "Town & Country's Top 50 Philanthropists of 2019". Town & Country.
  20. Greenberger, Alex (27 November 2018). "Aiming to Preserve Artists' Legacies, Hauser & Wirth Founds Nonprofit Institute for Archival Projects". ARTnews. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  21. Vankin, Deborah. "Cal State L.A. gets $1 million for student filmmaking from art gallery Hauser & Wirth". latimes.com. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  22. Nick Clark (23 October 2015), Iwan Wirth: The more public half of the art world’s most powerful couple is a creative pirate who shares his treasures The Independent.
  23. Maximilíano Durón (13 June 2019), Hauser & Wirth Will Open Exhibition Space, Residency Program on Menorca’s Isla del Rey ARTnews.
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