BIOGRAPHY
Arne Hiersoux, American Painter and Entrepeneur (1938-83).

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A painter of international renown, and a daring entrepreneur, Hiersoux was also part of a family committed to the growth of the arts in America. He belongs to a select group of American Expressionist painters (including Franz Kline, William deKooning, Richard Diebenkorn) who were enormously influential in mid-twentieth century American art.

For Arne the complete integration of art and life meant that the world became his canvas and he brought his artistic vision into life itself.

As an Artist Hiersoux exhibited and helped create 2 print studios

  • Palace of Legion of Honor (San Francisco, CA, 1963) One-Man show: Oil on Canvas
  • Mills College (Oakland, CA, 1966) One-man show: Oil on Canvas
  • Berkeley Park Series Berkeley Art Center (Berkeley, CA 1967) One-man show: Acrylic on Canvas
  • Berkeley Park Series (Annenberg, PA, CA 1971) One-man show: Acrylic on Canvas
  • Co-creator of KALA, an internationally-esteemed lithograph-etching studio (Berkeley, CA, 1980-present)
  • Co-creator of Magnolia Press with Don Farnsworth and David Kimball (Magnolia Press, 1982-present)
  • Founded a publishing company with Stephen Thomas and Will Powers publishing a hand made book, "Mullberry Women," poem by Robert Kelly, drypoints by Matt Phillips (1982)

As a member of a family deeply committed to the arts, he was:

  • Born into a family of classically trained chamber musicians who taught him early the value of art and the discipline required of a true creative.

  • A husband to his life-long partner, internationally acclaimed ceramicist Catharine Hiersoux, and a father to Mark (born 1960), and Karen (born 1964).

As an entrepreneur, Arne Hiersoux was:

  • Co-founder and Principal (with his brother) of the iconic mountaineering equipment company, The North Face (1967-70, Berkeley, CA)
  • Co-founder and Principal of Zoom Zoom Air, a six-plane cargo airline with sixty employees that he ran from 1971-1978.
  • Principal architect and developer of Hiersoux Gallery
At the end of the year, 1982, when Hiersoux helped launch Magnolia Press, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. His life ended in 1983. The premature conclusion of his life demands even more strongly a vigorous embrace of the rich and multi-layered creative life that Arne lived in mid-twentieth century America. Download full bio (pdf)