About Michèle

Michèle Gerber Klein is an author and philanthropist.

Books: Michèle Gerber Klein’s definitive biography: Charles James Portrait of an Unreasonable Man, published by Rizzoli ex Libris in 2018 was widely well-received. Kirkus Reviews called it “a luscious expose of a game changing designer who revolutionized the fashion industry." Book Forum described it as “a page turner.” The New York Times praised Klein’s “formidable knowledge of fashion” and The Financial Times who found the biography “uproarious” named it a BEST BOOK of the year.

Her new work, Surreal: The Extraordinary Life Of Gala Dalí, to be published by Harper Collins on April 1, 2025, is the riveting life story of Gala, Salvador Dalí’s wife, partner, and muse. A charismatic, uninhibited; very human woman she was a force majeure in pre-war Paris’ legendary Surrealist circles where she was idolized as ‘the mother of Surrealism’. As Dalí’s great love, artistic collaborator, and the genius behind his vast fortune, Gala inflected the cultural history of the twentieth century.

Articles: Michèle’s articles on art, fashion and arts de vivre have appeared in a wide variety of publications including Quest; C; Night; Cottages and Gardens, where she was a contributing editor; New York Social Diary, which published her accounts of her trips to India, Peru and Turkey, as well Patrick McMullan’s magazine for which she authored “Eyes on Fashion.” She is a columnist for Mann Publications, a contributor to the Brooklyn Rail and her interview with Tina Barney, filmed by artist Anton Peresh, can be viewed on the BOMB web site. Her interviews with her artist friends for BOMB and The Brooklyn Rail have been translated into several languages, taught at Columbia University, archived by the Getty Museum and quoted by scholars here and abroad.

Philanthropy: Since 1997, Michèle Gerber Klein has been the Vice President of the Bertha and Isaac Liberman Foundation. She serves or has served on the boards of the Dia Foundation for the Arts, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum, The Museum at FIT, The Alliance Française, New Arts Publications, Casita Maria, Chez Bushwick, the Brooklyn Rail, The New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation, The Hundred Year Association of New York and Fondatzione Bogliasco.

She is Honorary Chair of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s combined Library and Conservation committees and a member of the museum’s Photography Acquisition Committee. In addition, Michele is a member of the Architecture and Design and the Photography Acquisition Committees at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.

A proactive fund raiser, Michèle has chaired many benefits including BOMB magazine (in JP Morgan’s library at the Morgan), New York City Opera Spring 2006 Season Gala Dinner, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Cool Culture, and Chez Bushwick featuring Pharrell Williams and Jonah Bokaer, as well as Operation Smile in conjunction with Boucheron jewelers. In 2000 she chaired La Nuit des Etoiles, for the New York Alliance Française which honored French actress Catherine Deneuve at the restaurant Daniel with a French film star at every table.

In 2011, Michèle was the recipient of the Mann Foundation’s Woman of the Year award for her work in fashion and philanthropy.

Collections: Michèle collects works on paper, photographs, and shoes. Items from her collections have been displayed by The Museum at FIT, The Museum of Modern Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; and The Jewish Museum.

Michele’s party for her Brearley School class’ twenty-fifth reunion was the catalyst for Elizabeth Fishel’s book Reunion: The Girls We Used to Be, the Women We Became. Fishel’s description of the gathering was excerpted by Vogue.

Biography: Michèle Gerber Klein was born in New Mexico and raised in New York where she attended the Lycée Français de New York and graduated from The Brearley School. After Bryn Mawr College where she earned a B.A. degree in English literature, she returned to New York where she founded joan vass U.S.A., a collection of popularly priced, elegant knit wear. She currently lives and works in Manhattan.

Additionally, Michele Gerber Klein has been acknowledged in:

Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light by Sarah Hermanson Meister and Bill Brandt MOMA, 2013.

Strange Tale of Panorama Island by Edogawa Ranpo translated by Elaine Katzu Gerbert, University of Hawaii Press, 2013.

Behind the Baton: An American Icon Talks Music By Gerard Schwartz, Maxine Frost, 2016

Anxious Objects: Willie Cole’s Favorite Brands by Patterson Sims, 2006

Elsie de Wolfe’s Paris: Frivolity Before the Storm by Charlie Scheips 2014

Cindy Sherman by Eva Respini and Johanna Burton, 2012 MoMA press

Dia, the Collection in Beacon by Lynn Cook and Michael Govan, Dia Art Foundation 2003.

Michele Gerber Klein has been quoted in:

Pantone on Fashion: A Century of Color in Design by Leatrice Eisman and EP Cutler, 2014.

Her show Shoesshoesshoes in the FREDERIEKE TAYLOR gallery, which was devoted exclusively to art about shoes, was highlighted in New York Magazine, reviewed by The New Yorker and The New York Times and was the subject of a feature article in Shuz magazine. It drew lines around the block.

Objects of art and fashion from Michele Gerber Klein’s collections have been accepted and displayed by the Museum at FIT and MoMA in New York.

Michele’s portrait has been painted by Edward Butler and Izhar Patkin, sketched by Maggie Norris and photographed by Anton Perich and Sherin Neshiat.