Heinz Berggruen
Encyclopedia
Art dealer
An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art. Art dealers' professional associations serve to set high standards for accreditation or membership and to support art exhibitions and shows.-Role:...
and collector who founded the Berggruen Museum
Berggruen Museum
The Berggruen Museum is a collection of modern art classics in Berlin, which the collector and dealer Heinz Berggruen, in a "gesture of reconciliation", gave to his native city for a price well below its actual value. The most notable artists on display include Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti,...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany.
Biography
Berggruen was born in Berlin on 6 January 1914 to Ludwig Berggruen, a Jewish businessman who owned an office supply business before the war, and Antonie Zadek. He attended the Goethe-Gymnasium in Wilmersdorf and graduated to the Friedrich-Wilhelms (now Humboldt) University in 1932 where he read literature and art history. After 1933 he continued his studies at the universities of Grenoble and Toulouse. He was working as a journalist for Frankfurter Zeitung, the forerunner of today’s Frankfurter Allgemeine ZeitungFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
, in the mid-1930’s when he was informed that, because of his Jewish surname, his articles would in future be signed only by his initials, H. B. He fled Hitler's regime in 1936.
He immigrated to the United States in 1936 and studied art at University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. After working as an art critic for The San Francisco Chronicle, in 1939 he became an "Assistant director" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
. In preparing an exhibition about the Mexican painter Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
he met Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
, too, and later had a short love affair with her in New York in 1940.
That year he bought his first picture for $100. It was a watercolour by Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
.
After the Second World War Berggruen returned to Europe as member of the U.S. Army and worked briefly with the novelist Erich Kästner
Erich Kästner
Emil Erich Kästner was a German author, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known for his humorous, socially astute poetry and children's literature.-Dresden 1899–1919:...
on the American-sponsored paper "Heute" in Munich. He then moved to Paris, where he worked in the fine arts division of UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
, run by his former boss at the San Francisco museum, Grace Morley. Within a few years, he opened a small bookshop on the Île Saint-Louis
Île Saint-Louis
The Île Saint-Louis is one of two natural islands in the Seine river, in Paris, France . The island is named after King Louis IX of France ....
, specializing in illustrated books and later lithographs. During this time he got acquainted with Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
in Paris, who spontaneously had confidence in Berggruen and so he became Picasso's art dealer.
His renowned art collection, valued at $450 million in 2001, included 165 masterpieces by 20th-century masters such as Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
, Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
, and Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...
, with a unique group of 85 works by Picasso.
Berggruen resigned as director of the Paris gallery in 1980 in order to devote himself to collecting and dealing. In 1988, he donated 90 Klee works on paper to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York, although he later expressed fear that his donation would go unnoticed in the museum’s own vast collections. In 1990, he lent a good part of his collection to the National Gallery
National gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
in London. In 1995, he finally left the art collection in a generous gesture to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation , headquartered in Berlin, Germany, is one of the largest cultural institutions in the world. It was founded by a West German federal law passed on 25 July 1957, with the mission to acquire and protect the cultural legacy of the former state of Prussia...
. For this he was awarded the honorary citizenship of Berlin and the Federal Cross of Merit (Grand Cross 2nd Class) of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz
Bundesverdienstkreuz
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany is the only general state decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has existed since 7 September 1951, and between 3,000 and 5,200 awards are given every year across all classes...
, Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern und Schulterband). In 1996, after 60 years in exile, he took an apartment in Berlin and opened an art museum in front of the Charlottenburg Palace
Charlottenburg Palace
Charlottenburg Palace is the largest palace in Berlin, Germany, and the only royal residency in the city dating back to the time of the Hohenzollern family. It is located in the Charlottenburg district of the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf burough.The palace was built at the end of the 17th century...
. The collection, then comprising 118 works, opened to the public in 1997. In 2000 the collection of 165 works (including 85 Picassos), valued at €750m, was sold to the PCHF at about a quarter of its value. Berggruen later talked his fellow Berliner Helmut Newton
Helmut Newton
Helmut Newton, born Helmut Neustädter was a German-Australian photographer. He was a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of Vogue and other publications."-Early life:Newton was born in Berlin, the son of Klara...
into giving his photographic collection to the city.
From 1939 to 1945 Berggruen was married to the US-American Lillian Zellerbach; since 1959 to the German actress Bettina Moissi. His children include John Berggruen, owner of the John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco; Olivier Berggruen, curator at the Kunsthalle
Kunsthalle
Kunsthalle is, generally, in German speaking regions a term for a facility mounting temporary art exhibitions. Some are run or supported by a local Kunstverein, an art association of local collectors and artists...
called Schirn Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
The Schirn Kunsthalle is Frankfurt's active exhibition space located in the heart of the old city next to the Dom , exhibiting both modern and contemporary art. Exhibitions in recent years included retrospectives of Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Frida Kahlo, Alberto Giacometti, Bill Viola, and...
in Frankfurt, Germany; and Nicolas Berggruen
Nicolas Berggruen
Nicolas Berggruen is an investor. He is the son of art collector Heinz Berggruen. He is the founder and president of Berggruen Holdings, a private investment company and the Nicolas Berggruen Institute, a political think tank. His father created the Museum Berggruen in Berlin and his mother was...
, a playboy financier and art collector.
Berggruen died at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...
on 23 February 2007. At his own wish he was buried in the forest cemetery in Dahlem
Dahlem (Berlin)
Dahlem is a locality of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough in southwestern Berlin. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a part of the former borough of Zehlendorf. Dahlem is one of the most affluent parts of the city and home to the main campus of the Free University of Berlin with the...
, in Berlin.