Founded in 1970 by Margareta and Miklos von Bartha, the gallery has specialised in Constructivist and Concrete art from the beginning. Margareta and Miklos both graduated from the class of eminent graphic designer Armin Hofmann at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel, instilling a fervent interest and passion for abstract art.

In the gallery’s early years, Margareta and Miklos von Bartha staged solo exhibitions of young artists as well as important thematic exhibitions, including Ungarische Avantgarde in 1976 – a seminal exhibition which eventually led to the artists’ international breakthrough. Prior to this show, László Moholy-Nagy was the only Hungarian artist recognized on an international level. Neither Lajos Kassák – then central figure of the avant-garde in Budapest and publisher of the magazine MA – nor his companion, Sándor Bortnyik were known to Western art audiences. Similarly, László Peri, who invented the idea of the “shaped canvas” 40 years before Frank Stella, János Mattis-Teutsch, Joseph Csáky and Lajos d’ Ebneth, were also unheard of. However, this was soon to change.

Von Bartha placed two of the Hungarian avant-garde’s most significant portfolios into the ‘Cabinet des Estampes’ in Geneva; these were Bortnyik’s ‘MA’ folder from 1921 and Peris Sturm’s folder from 1922-23. The gallery also sold work to internationally renowned museums, including the Dallas Art Museum and the Musée de Grenoble.

In the following years, thematic exhibitions took place including Horizontal-Vertikal (1977) and Diagonale und Kreis (1979), amongst others. The gallery particularly focused on artists from the Op Art and Kinetic art movements, including Gerhard von Graevenitz, Victor Vasarely, Pol Bury, Jesús Rafael Soto and François Morellet.

In the early 80s, von Bartha organised multiple exhibitions with the Swedish Constructivists, such as Olle Baertling and Eric H. Olson.

From 1987-89, Margareta and Miklos von Bartha acquired over 150 works of Argentinian artists from the Arte Concreto and Madí movements in Buenos Aires. They published a catalogue, which is still considered the standard reference work for this art movement. Today, these paintings, sculptures and works on paper are in major private collections and museums, such as eight of the works donated by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros to MoMA, New York in 2017, including those by Alfredo Hlito, Raúl Lozza, Tomás Maldonado, Juan Melé, Gregorio Vardanega and Virgillo Villalba.