Gallerist Martin Muller marks 30 years in S.F.

Martin Muller was the first gallerist to bring Andy Warhol's work to San Francisco in 1982. The Pop artist - not only a painter and graphic artist but also a theoretician who Muller believed would change art profoundly - so confused clients of the day that nobody bought a piece except Muller himself. They went for $20,000 that night and sell for $1 million or more today.

The Swiss-born dealer - part professor, part provocateur - enjoys challenging his clients' intellect, which is why his gallery continues to thrive three decades after he opened it in 1979 and holds a top-tier spot along with Fraenkel Gallery, John Berggruen and Gallery Paule Anglim, to name a few.

From Russian avant-garde works to blue-chip artists such as Jacques Villegle, Charles Arnoldi, Gottfried Helnwein, James Hayward and Naomie Kremer, his stable of works is impressive. His tastes are wide-ranging, as shown by his representation of younger artists such as Daniel Mendel-Black and comic artists such as Glen Baxter, which, from a critic's perspective, keeps customers guessing.

Muller celebrated 30 years in San Francisco recently with a small dinner for friends at Foreign Cinema restaurant, in his Modernism West annex. The private dining room and art gallery is a salon for discussion of art, politics and culture. Muller publishes volume upon volume of art books in the United States, as well as the French-language journal LunaPark in Paris. Friends sometimes think twice about visiting his gallery without a tote bag because he generously hands out armloads of books in the quest to educate.

There were toasts and jokes and quips and laughs, but behind it all, a serious love of art.

"My greatest source of nourishment - fine foods and good wines aside - comes from my ongoing interaction with the arts, be it visual arts, literature or music," Muller confided. "It is the excitement and challenges brought about by the world of ideas that make up the art world that allows me to learn and grow. For me, life would be meaningless without it."

This article appeared on page S - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle