Berggruen, Heinz

▪ 2008

      German-born art collector

born Jan. 5, 1914 , Berlin, Ger.

died Feb. 23, 2007, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France

amassed a collection of 20th-century art, the core of which consisted of some 130 works by Pablo Picasso, with whom Berggruen became friends in 1949. In 1996 Berggruen, who, because he was Jewish, fled from Nazi Germany to the U.S. in 1936, returned to Berlin, which restored a historic building to house his collection. Four years later, in what was regarded as an extraordinary gesture, he sold 165 works to the Berggruen Museum for a fraction of their true value. Berggruen began his collection in the late 1930s with a watercolour by Paul Klee and a Picasso drawing. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he moved to Paris, where in 1947 he opened an art gallery; he closed Galerie Berggruen in 1980 to concentrate on collecting. Berggruen's other important donations included 90 Klee paintings and drawings that he gave to New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1988.

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