Elmer Nelson Bischoff (American, 1916–1991) was a painter and founding member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Born in Berkeley, CA, Bischoff studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned both his BFA and MFA. After serving in the US Army as a lieutenant colonel stationed in England, he returned to San Francisco to teach at the California School of Fine Arts, where he met and befriended the painters Richard Diebenkorn and David Park. Together, they broke away from the prevailing trend of abstraction to return to figuration—at a time when it was unpopular to do so.

In 1955, the Oakland Art Museum organized a seminal exhibition surveying Bay Area Figurative art, including Bischoff, and established it as a major painting movement. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the San Francisco School of Fine Art, The Oakland Museum of California, George Adams Gallery in New York, Paul Kantor Gallery in Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among many others. His work can be found in the public collection of the Rose Art Museum in Massachusetts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, among others.