Jack Bilbo

Jack Bilbo (born Hugo Cyril Kulp Baruch, 13 April 1907 –19 December 1967) was a German writer, art gallery owner, and self-taught painter.

Life Bilbo was born in Berlin, Germany in 1907. His parents owned a theatrical supply company. After the Nazis came to power he fled to France, Spain, and finally to England.

In 1941, Bilbo opened The Modern Art Gallery in London, exhibiting the work of Kurt Schwitters, Pablo Picasso, and his own paintings and drawings, as well as the work of many unknown artists.

Bilbo moved to Weybridge, England after the war ended and created large figurative sculptures in cement in his home's garden. They were entitled, Life, Devotion, and Sanctuary, and were destroyed when he left England in the early 1950s, moving to France with his wife Owo. The book is subtitled "The first forty years of the complete and intimate life-story of an Artist, Author, Sculptor, Art Dealer, Philosopher, Psychologist, Traveller and a Modernist Fighter for Humanity". In the same year he also closed the gallery.

He eventually returned to Berlin where he died in 1967. 1988 England & Company Gallery (retrospective exhibition) 1990 England & Company Gallery ("Jack Bilbo & the Moderns: The Modern Art Gallery 1941-48") 2001 England & Company Gallery ("Obsessive Visions: Art Outside the Mainstream") 2014 David Zwirner Gallery ("Jack Bilbo")