BEVERLY HILLS, CA.- As the founder of Galerie Michael Inc., Michael Schwartz provides expertise from a lifelong career and love of art. His illustrious career as a fine art dealer spans a period of over thirty-five years. In 1978, he founded Galerie Michael in Los Angeles, a gallery dedicated to exhibiting four centuries of top-quality European art from Rembrandt to Picasso. The gallery reflects his founding philosophy of taking a long term view of working from posterity rather than prosperity bringing fine art to collectors at a fair market values and building museum quality collections one work at a time.

Schwartz has an extraordinary eye and an established record of identifying great works and rediscovering historically important artists of previous centuries. His experience has given him a talent for discovering artistic geniuses who had achieved great recognition during their era but for sociological, political or cultural reasons they were lost in time.

Over the past quarter of a century, Schwartz has traveled extensively throughout Europe and other parts of the world developing relationships with some of the world’s most renowned art dealers, scholars, and experts that has allowed him access to some of the world’s great collections. He also works with members of the Cezanne, Pissarro, and Renoir families. All of which has enabled him to acquire the works of great masters, often before they become available on the open market.

According to Michael Schwartz, his personal interest in 17th to 20th Century European art led him to realize the need for an international gallery in Los Angeles. A gallery which would present fine art to the community and provide collectors with an opportunity to study, learn and collect international, quality art at affordable prices.

Schwartz is a former board member of the Graphic Arts Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art plus a founder and member of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and a past member of the President’s Circle at LACMA. He is also a founder at the Music Center in Los Angeles. He worked on the board of the Family Assistance Program and the Rodeo Drive Association Executive Committee. Through his work with charitable organizations, he has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Spare Change Project, Family Assistance Program, Beverly Hills Bar Association for the Ronald McDonald House, Los Angeles Legal Aid Counsel, Bethune Ballet, Maple Center and the Make a Wish Foundation.

He has published extensive art catalogues, on Rembrandt van Rijn, Leon Augustine L’Hermitte, Fin de Siecle I and II, 19th Century Prints Revisited, and Lautrec and His Circle. His referenced books include Manuel Robbe and the Barbizon Revisited. He is a noted lecturer and authority on the works of the etchings of Rembrandt, Toulouse-Lautrec, the Pre-Impressionist plein-air artists of the Barbizon School and Picasso.

When on the board of Los Angeles County Museum of Art Graphic Art’s council, he conducted a one-day symposium on Toulouse-Lautrec and was selected as one of the primary curators for the extensive Wagner Lautrec and French Poster Collection. He was instrumental in bringing that group of works into the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He also assisted the curator of prints and drawing in exhibiting the Wagner collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and their subsequent seven museum traveling exhibitions. Many of the works were exhibited at the famous Lautrec and Circle exhibition that toured the Art Institute of Chicago and a number of other museums. In addition to being a member of the Fine Art Dealers Association of America, Mr. Schwartz has organized multiple exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Canada.

A note-worthy collection curated by Schwartz is the Kaplan collection of Rembrandt artworks exhibited in London than on to two German museums. Accompanying the collection is an essay written by the head of the Prints and Drawings Department of the British Museum. One of Schwartz’s most significant museum quality collections is the Villarino collection of Rembrandt’s Beggars, which over the last three years has been exhibited at over nine American museums.

Currently and over the last seven years, Schwartz has been working on an important collection of rare Picasso progressive proofs and states. He as worked with Bridgitte Baer who worked over 13 years creating a raisonne of Picasso’s graphic works. She also did a catalogue for Galerie Michael’s Picasso Exhibition. When complete, the collection will go on museum tour within the next two years.

A Chicago native, Schwartz and his wife Janet have been married and worked together for 43 years. They’ve worked together to build Galerie Michael into an international gallery with worldwide recognition—With thirty-five year of experience, Schwartz frequently is called upon by auction houses and other entities for his expertise, lecturing and his curatorial skills as well as his ability to authenticate unknown works.

When asked what he enjoys most: “Candidly, I feel being a good dealer is working for my clients, bringing major works into their collection at minimum prices. I love building museum quality collections one fine work at a time.”