Seeing a Mark Rothko exhibition in his youth, had a profound influence on Michael Biberstein. An artistic encounter that would change the course of his life. Michael Biberstein left Switzerland in the 1960s to study Art History in the United States with British critic David Sylvester at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia. The artist became interested in Early Christian art and the architecture of Roman churches as well as Baroque painting and, specifically, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Sacred spaces all over the world, which he tirelessly visited, became a major theme in his work, in spite of his militant agnosticism.

The ethereal landscapes of Michael Biberstein, fascinated by astrophysics, resemble vibrations in space and resonances in silence. They recall landscapes by Vernet, Friedrich, Turner, Monet, Cézanne and Rothko as well as reminiscences of Eastern landscape painting. The atmospheric space of the work is an architecture built to make visible a cosmology imprinted with eternity and infinity. The absence of contours can suggest form, the flux of colors changes constantly according to the light.

Without any doubt, his countless skies and meditative landscapes resulted in the urge to create a ceiling for the Santa Isabel Church (1742), in Lisbon, to which the artist dedicated four years of his life. Unfinished when the artist suddenly passed away in 2013, the decision to carry out the realisation of this major work was taken with the support of the gallery that presented an exhibition-fundraising in 2014 entitled “A Sky for Michael Biberstein” featuring the 1/8 scale-model of the Church. The gallery had previously shown his work in a group show entitled “La tentation de l’Orient” as well as a first solo show in 2009 entitled “Résonance du silence”. An important part of the budget for the realisation of Michael Biberstein’s ceiling for the Church provided by sponsors solicited by the gallery.

In connexion with the unveiling of the Ceiling of Santa Isabel Church in Lisbon painted by Michael Biberstein in 2016, the Foundation Árpád Szenes – Vieira da Silva, organises a presentation of the artist’s studies for the ceiling in collaboration with the gallery. This presentation also features works on paper and the model of Santa Isabel Church with Michael Biberstein’s painting, realized by Appleton and Domingos Arquitectos.

The gallery organizes a solo show of Michael Biberstein entitled “Paysage en apothéose” with a selection of original drawings, rarely presented or previously unseen, as they were discovered in his studio after he passed away, and publishes a catalogue dedicated to his works on paper with the collaboration of Nicholas Turner, curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in preparation for the publication of the artist’s Catalogue Raisonné.
The gallery also presented the same year Michael Biberstein’s works at the art fairs Art Dubaï and Drawing Now, Paris .

In 2017, the works by Michael Biberstein are presented at the exhibitions “Corps et Ames” and “Whispers from the Earth” at the gallery, and at the exhibition “Passion de l’Art – Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger depuis 1925”, first retrospective devoted to the galerie, at Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence, South of France.

In 2018, the gallery organizes an exhibition staging a dialogue between the works on paper by Mark Tobey and Michael Biberstein.

The same year in Lisbon, an important retrospective entitled Michael Bibersein : X, is organized by Culturgest, Fundacao Caixa Geral de depositos. An exhibition catalogue is published.

From March to September 2020, the gallery presents SEEING, solo show dedicated to Michael Biberstein. This exhibition gives a deeper insight into the various stages of the artist’s life.

The Royal Palace of Caserta (Campania, Italy) is organizing an important solo exhibition of Michael Biberstein’s work, “Beyond,” in 2023.

www.michaelbiberstein.com

Michael Biberstein, Untitled
Watercolor and ink on paper
11,9 × 17,9 in
Photograph by Laura Castro Caldas
Michael Biberstein, Untitled
Pastel on paper
6,3 × 9 in
Photograph by Laura Castro Caldas
Michael Biberstein, Untitled, 1997
Acrylic on canvas
78,7 × 98,4 in
Michael Biberstein, HM Glider, 2001
Acrylic on canvas
70,9 × 161,4 in
Photograph by Georges Poncet
Michael Biberstein, 4-teilige Auflösung einer Horizontalen in Richtung Landschaft, 1983
Oil and pastel on paper
11,5 × 16,5 in
Photograph by Georges Poncet
Michael Biberstein, Prospect
Watercolour and ink on paper
4,4 × 6,4 in
Photograph by Laura Castro Caldas
Michael Biberstein, Santa Isabel Church, Lisbon
View of the Church’s ceiling on its inauguration, July 2016.
Photograph by Georges Poncet
Michael Biberstein, Untitled, 2009
Ink on paper
11,8 × 9,7 in
Photograph by Georges Poncet
Michael Biberstein, Untitled, 2009
Ink on paper
11,8 × 23,6 in
Photograph by Georges Poncet
Michael Biberstein, White Cube, 1986
Acrylic on canvas
59,1 × 70,8 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Michael Biberstein, Study for a Sky, 2010-2013
Ink on paper
22,4 × 30,2 in
Photograph by Laura Castro Caldas
Michael Biberstein, Cedars, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
102,4 × 126 in
Photograph by Georges Poncet
Michael Biberstein, Dark Glider, 2004
Acrylic on canvas
106,3 × 98,4 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Michael Biberstein, K3, 1991
Acrylic on canvas
90,6 × 145,7 in
Photograph by Georges Poncet
Michael Biberstein, Untitled,2009
China ink on paper
13,9 × 19,9 in
Photographie de Georges Poncet
Michael Biberstein, Poly-Glider, 1996
Acrylic on canvas
74,8 × 63 in