Thierry Barbier-Mueller (1960–2023) graduated from the University of Geneva with a law degree and went on to embrace multiple roles: real estate developer, publisher, collector of contemporary art and design, and father of five daughters. In 2000, he became managing director of Société Privée de Gérance (SPG), the real estate company founded by his father, building up an impressive range of property developments and construction activities in Geneva. A former chairman of the board of Fondation Musée Barbier-Mueller and a member of the Swiss Association of Art Collectors and of MoMA’s International Council, Thierry Barbier-Mueller devoted a major part of his life to art. He also initiated a number of awards: the SPG/HEPIA prize for concepts in landscaping, the SPG sustainable development prize, and the SPG literary prize.

Zoé Barbier-Mueller (*1994) is the third of Thierry Barbier-Mueller’s five daughters. She completed a bachelor’s degree in management at Cass Business School (now Bayes Business School) in London, followed by a master’s degree in modern and contemporary art from the University of Glasgow. Her career began in Berlin, where she spent several years at Galerie Max Hetzler, working on research, writing, gallery relations, and exhibition management. Since 2023, she has served on the board of Fondation Musée Barbier-Mueller and actively fosters her family’s legacy of promoting artistic creation. In 2025, she co-curated the exhibition A conversation without words at Musée Jenisch Vevey, Switzerland. She is currently studying for an MBA at INSEAD Business School.

ROBERT WILSON (1941–2025) was among the world’s foremost theater directors and visual artists. After being educated at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, he founded the New York-based performance collective The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds in the mid-1960s, and developed his first signature works, including Deafman Glance (1970) and A Letter for Queen Victoria (1974–1975). With Philip Glass he wrote the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach (1976). His stage productions are unconventional in integrating a wide variety of artistic media, including dance, movement, lighting, music, and text. His drawings, paintings, and sculptures have been presented in exhibitions around the world and have received numerous awards for excellence, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and the Praemium Imperiale 2023 in Tokyo. Robert Wilson founded The Watermill Center, a laboratory for the arts in Water Mill, New York. He passed away there in 2025.