Heinz Berggruen : Un Marchand Et Sa Collection Picasso, Klee, Matisse, Giacometti

Exhibition at the Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, 2 October 2024 - 27January 2025

Following in the footsteps of Paul Guillaume, the German dealer-collector Heinz Berggruen (1914-2007) built up an exceptional collection of his twentieth-century masters. Born into a Jewish family in Berlin, he went into exile in the United States in 1936 and made his first contacts with the art world in San Francisco.

After the war, Berggruen returned to Europe and opened his first gallery in Paris in 1947. An enthusiastic collector, he quickly became part of the Parisian cultural scene, meeting both the artists to be exhibited and the poets, dealers, historians, critics and collectors of the day. Guided by his own tastes and affinities, he built up an exceptional collection of 20th-century works around his two favourite masters, Picasso and Klee, which he sold to the German state in 2000.

Based on around a hundred masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen in Berlin, this exhibition catalogue focuses on Heinz Berggruen and the choices, encounters and affinities that led to the creation of this collection. It highlights the almost exhaustive collection of works by Picasso and Klee, as well as Matisse's papier collés and Giacometti's filiform sculptures, and raises the profile of a major player in the Paris art market in the second half of the 20th century.