Art galleryHauser & Wirth
A Swiss gallery that became one of the three largest in the world, known for artists' estates and for art centres in unlikely places.
- Founded
- 1992, Zurich
- Founded by
- Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth and Ursula Hauser
- Run from
- Zurich
- Spaces in
- 12 cities
- Highest reported sale
- $40 million
The gallery
Hauser & Wirth was founded in Zurich in 1992 by Iwan Wirth, then in his early twenties, with Manuela Hauser, whom he later married, and her mother, the collector Ursula Hauser. It began in an apartment and moved in 1996 into the former Löwenbräu brewery, which is still one of its Zurich addresses.
The gallery grew by taking on the estates of major artists as well as living ones: Louise Bourgeois, Philip Guston, Eva Hesse, Jack Whitten. It opened in London in 2003 and in New York in 2009, and then took a different road from its rivals. In 2014 it turned Durslade Farm, in the Somerset countryside, into a gallery with a garden, a restaurant and rooms to stay in. An island in the harbour of Mahón, in Menorca, followed in 2021.
It regularly reports the largest sales at Art Basel. The steel Spider by Louise Bourgeois that it sold there in 2022 for 40 million dollars is among the highest prices a gallery has ever announced at a fair.
Reported sales
- Louise BourgeoisSpider, 1996$40 millionArt Basel 2022
- Pablo PicassoLe peintre et son modèle dans un paysage, 1963$35 millionArt Basel 2026
- Gerhard RichterAbstraktes Bild, 1987$23 millionArt Basel Paris 2025
- Louise BourgeoisSpider IV, 1996$22.5 millionArt Basel 2023
- Gerhard RichterAbstraktes Bild (940-7), 2015$20 millionArt Basel 2026
- Arshile GorkyUntitled (Gray Drawing (Pastoral)), c. 1946 to 1947$16 millionArt Basel 2024
- Philip GustonFour Heads, 1975$9.5 millionArt Basel 2023
- Cy TwomblyOn Returning from Tonnicoda, 1973$5 millionArt Basel 2026
- Bruce NaumanMasturbating Man, 1985$4.75 millionArt Basel Paris 2025
- George CondoUntitled (Taxi Painting), 2011$4 millionArt Basel Miami Beach 2025
Prices as the gallery reported them from its stand at the fair named. They are the seller's figures, usually the asking price, and cannot be checked.
Artists and estates
- Louise Bourgeois
- Philip Guston
- Eva Hesse
- Jack Whitten
- Mark Bradford
- George Condo
- Rashid Johnson
- Paul McCarthy
- Pipilotti Rist
- Roni Horn
- Lorna Simpson
- Frank Bowling
- Avery Singer
- Christina Quarles
- David Hammons
- Dieter Roth
- Maria Lassnig
- Cindy Sherman
A selection. Rosters change, and the gallery's own site has the full list.
Milestones
- 1992Founded in Zurich, in Iwan Wirth's apartment.
- 1996The first permanent space, in the Löwenbräu building in Zurich.
- 2003London opens on Piccadilly.
- 2014Hauser & Wirth Somerset opens at Durslade Farm, near Bruton.
- 2016Los Angeles: a restored flour mill in the Arts District.
- 2021An art centre opens on the Illa del Rei, in Menorca.