Elmer Nelson Bischoff (July 9, 1916 – March 2, 1991),[1] was an American visual artist, from the San Francisco Bay Area.
[2] Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post-World War II generation of artists who started as abstract painters and found their way back to figurative art.
He entered the University of California, Berkeley, in September 1934, completing his master's degree in May 1939, and immediately started teaching art at Sacramento High School (1939–41).
In 1941, he served as a lieutenant colonel in intelligence services of the United States Army Air Forces in England, stationing near Oxford, and only coming back to the US in November 1945.
Elmer Bischoff was older than Diebenkorn, and he had experiences in the world that led to his taking an independent turn in painting.