Franz Arthur Bischoff was born in Austria in the small town of Bomen on Jan 14, 1864. He studied art in Vienna before immigrating to the U.S. in 1885. He worked as a decorator of china in a New York factory and later continued this line of work in Pittsburgh, PA and Fostoria, OH. In 1892 he moved to Dearborn, MI where he produced ceramic works and taught china decorating. He first visited California in 1900, but it was six years later before he and his family moved to Los Angeles. Bischoff established a studio in the Blanchard Building and in 1908 built a palatial Italian Renaissance style studio-home in the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena.

He brought with him a reputation of one as the nation's greatest china painters; however, in California he turned to painting impressionist landscapes of the desert around Palm Springs and the poppy fields near the Arroyo Seco. His subjects also include floral still-lifes, harbor scenes in San Pedro, coastal scenes and Zion National Park.

Bischoff's early works were softer and more muted that his later works, which often show the influence of Expressionism and the Fauves.