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About Alfred Bader Fine Arts What makes this art gallery so different from most galleries, is that it is so non-elitist. Most galleries frown upon customers who don't want to spend thousands of dollars. Here we have fine works priced at hundreds. We have museum quality works priced at thousands. Also, we have an array of 15th to 19th century works with quite a few realistic works by contemporary artists. All that is lacking is abstract art - we do not understand it. |
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About Dr. Alfred Bader "I am an inveterate collector. It may be a sickness, and it began with stamps at eight, drawings at 10, paintings at 20, and rare chemicals at 30." -- Alfred Bader Alfred Bader’s love affair with fine art began during the difficult pre-World War II years, when, as a young boy in Austria, he began collecting stamps: "I wandered from dealer to dealer, and scanned the newspapers for collections for sale, hoping to earn a little money, most of which I used to buy basic foods." Given money to purchase a camera for his tenth birthday, he bought an Old Master drawing instead, which he has since donated to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Although a Jewish refugee from the Nazis, Bader was interned with other "enemy aliens" in a Canadian POW camp, where he bought his first oil painting, a portrait of himself painted by a fellow prisoner, for the price of one dollar. In 1951 Alfred Bader founded Aldrich, later Sigma-Aldrich, the world’s largest supplier of research chemicals; Bader was able to combine his passion for fine art with his distinguished career as a chemist when Aldrich began using Old Master paintings from his private collection, often alchemical in theme, on the covers of its catalogs and journal, the Aldrichimica Acta. Articles on art history and alchemical paintings from "Our Chemist Collector" soon appeared in the catalog as well, penned anonymously by Bader. "Man Surprised," Bader’s very first Old Master painting, purchased in the early 1950’s and believed to be a portrait of Adriaen Brouwer, graced the cover of Aldrich’s catalog of the Alfred Bader Library of Rare Chemicals and may be seen on this website’s home page. This early appreciation for fine art became a life’s mission, including years of devotion to the study of art history with preeminent experts, art dealers, collectors, and historians of Old Master paintings. In 1962 he became both collector and dealer when he created "Alfred Bader Fine Arts." His love of 17th century Dutch and Flemish painting, particularly portraits and Biblical or historical themed-works by Rembrandt students, grew to include the work of Italian, French, and German painters and contemporary artists. Bader enjoys the thrill of discovery; he prefers to come upon "dirty old paintings" in antique shops which, thanks to his dedicated research and restoration, reveal themselves to be great, forgotten works. "Alfred Bader Fine Arts" has earned an international reputation, selling to such esteemed museums as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the National Gallery of Scotland, and the Getty. Bader has curated special exhibits, become a renowned lecturer, and was named a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London. Alfred Bader’s commitment to the "ABC’s" of his life – Art, Bible, Chemistry – has enriched the world. But looking back sixty years, this "Chemist Collector" simply observes: "As I wander from art dealer to art dealer in London, I realize that this is not very different from my [stamp] dealing in 1938…except that paintings are more fun." |
