Heinz Berggruen (January 6, 1914 – February 23, 2007) was a German and American
art dealer and
collector who sold 165 works of art to the German federal government to form the core of the
Berggruen Museum in Berlin, Germany. He was the father of
John,
Olivier and
Nicolas Berggruen
Nicolas Berggruen (; born 10 August 1961) is a US-based billionaire investor and philanthropist. Born in Paris, France, he is a dual German and American citizen. He is the founder and president of Berggruen Holdings, a private investment company ...
.
Early life and education
Berggruen was born in
Wilmersdorf
Wilmersdorf () is an inner-city locality of Berlin which lies south-west of the central city. Formerly a borough by itself, Wilmersdorf became part of the new Boroughs of Berlin, borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf following Berlin's 2001 admin ...
, Berlin to Jewish parents: Ludwig Berggruen, a businessman who owned an office supply business before the war, and Antonie (née Zadek).
[John Green (May 23, 2007)]
Heinz Berggruen
''The Guardian''. He attended the Goethe-Gymnasium in Wilmersdorf and graduated from the
Friedrich-Wilhelms (now Humboldt) University in 1932, where he read literature. After 1933, he continued his studies at the universities of
Grenoble
Grenoble ( ; ; or ; or ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Isère Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region ...
and Toulouse.
[Heinz Berggruen](_blank)
''The Times''.
Career
He contributed free-lance articles to the ''Frankfurter Zeitung'', the forerunner of today's ''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The (; ''FAZ''; "Frankfurt General Newspaper") is a German newspaper founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt and is considered a newspaper of record for Germany. Its Sunday edition is the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung'' ( ...
''. He got around the restrictions on Jewish contributors by submitting his pieces through a colleague and signing them with his initials, H. B., rather than his full, Jewish-sounding surname.
He fled Germany in 1936.
Immigration to the United States
Berggruen immigrated to the United States in 1936 and studied German literature at
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
. After working as an art critic for the ''
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...
'', in 1939 he became an "assistant to the director" at the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. There, he helped to prepare an exhibition about the Mexican painter
Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art.
Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...
. Later, in New York in 1940, he met
Frida Kahlo
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by Culture of Mexico, the country' ...
with whom he had a short love affair. That same year he says that he bought his first picture for $100 while honeymooning in Chicago.
It was a watercolour by
Paul Klee
Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
, and he bought it from a Jewish refugee in need of money.
While living in California, Berggruen was a student of the painter
David Park.
After the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
Berggruen returned to Europe as member of the U.S. Army and worked briefly on the American-sponsored paper ''Heute'' in Munich (located in the same building where the novelist
Erich Kästner
Emil Erich Kästner (; 23 February 1899 – 29 July 1974) was a German writer, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems and for children's books including ''Emil and the Detectives'' and '' Lisa an ...
worked). He then moved to Paris, where he worked in the fine arts division of
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
, run by his former boss at the San Francisco museum, Grace Morley. Within a few years, he opened a small bookshop on the
ÃŽle Saint-Louis
Île Saint-Louis (), in size, is one of two natural islands in the Seine river, in Paris, France (the other natural island is the Île de la Cité, where Notre-Dame de Paris is located). Île Saint-Louis is connected to the rest of Paris by fo ...
, specializing in illustrated books and later lithographs.
During this time he became acquainted with
Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara (; ; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, c ...
, who introduced him to
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno MarÃa de los Remedios Cipriano de la SantÃsima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
in Paris. He soon became an important dealer in Picasso prints, as well as in second-hand Picasso paintings. His renowned art collection, which he valued at $450 million in 2001, included 165 works by 20th-century masters such as
Braque,
Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
,
Klee, and
Giacometti, with a unique group of 85 works by Picasso.

In 1977, Berggruen published
Douglas Cooper's catalogue raisonné of
Juan Gris. He finally 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 to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
in New York, although he later expressed fear that his donation would go unnoticed in the museum's own vast collections.
The donation "made the Metropolitan the second most important Klee repository in the world, after the Kunstmuseum in Klee's native Switzerland," according to Michael Gross. That same year, he exhibited his collection at the
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva. In 1990, he lent a good part of his collection to the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...
in London, where he exhibited works—including Seurat's landmark painting ''
Les Poseuses'' (1886)—until 2001. In 1995, the German government lent him an apartment in Berlin and gave him an art museum opposite the
Charlottenburg Palace. The collection, then comprising 118 works, opened to the public in 1997. At the time, then German culture minister Ulrich Roloff-Momin described it as "the most meaningful art transfer in Berlin's post-war history." In 2000, he finally sold the art collection to the
Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (; SPK) is a German federal government body that oversees 27 museums and cultural organizations in and around Berlin, Germany. Its purview includes all of Berlin's State Museums, the Berlin State Librar ...
: the collection of 165 works (including 85 Picassos), which Berggruen valued at €750m, was purchased by the PCHF at about a quarter of that value. It additionally includes over sixty works by Paul Klee, and twenty by Matisse.


For his achievements, Berggruen was named a ''Commandeur'' of the
Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...
by the French government, received the Grand Cross of the
Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (, or , BVO) is the highest state decoration, federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It may be awarded for any field of endeavor. It was created by the first List of president ...
in 1999, and was named an honorary citizen of Berlin. He additionally received the
Jewish Museum Berlin's Award for Understanding and Tolerance in 2005, and was bestowed an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from
Adelphi University
Adelphi University is a private university in Garden City, New York, United States. Adelphi also has centers in Downtown Brooklyn, Hudson Valley, and Suffolk County in addition to a virtual, online campus for remote students. As of 2019, it had ...
in 1993. In 2008, a Berlin school was named the Heinz-Berggruen-Gymnasium in his honor. An honorary trustee of the Metropolitan Museum, he additionally served on the board of the
Berlin Philharmonic
The Berlin Philharmonic () is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world.
Throughout the 20th century, the orchestra was led by conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler (1922� ...
.
In 2016, Berggruen's Klee collection was exhibited in its entirety to inaugurate the
Met Breuer, and traveled to the
National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...
in 2018.
Personal life
Berggruen was married twice and had four children.
Berggruen, who until his death maintained homes in Paris,
Gstaad
Gstaad ( , ) is a town in the German language, German-speaking section of the Canton of Bern in southwestern Switzerland. It is part of the municipality of Saanen and is known as a major ski resort and a popular destination amongst high society ...
, and Berlin (and in Geneva and New York before that), was quoted as saying "I am neither French nor German, I am European. I'd very much like to think there was a European nationality, but I think I may be dreaming."
Through his mother, Antonie Zadek, Berggruen was a cousin of the opera singer
Hilde Zadek (1917–2019).
*In 1939, Berggruen married the American Lillian Zellerbach. They divorced in 1945. They had two children:
**
John Berggruen, owner of the Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco and active in the
Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...
art scene since 1970;
**Helen Berggruen, a San Francisco-based artist
*In 1960, he married the German actress
Bettina Moissi, a Catholic of Albanian and German descent. They had two children:
**
Olivier Berggruen, art historian and curator
**
Nicolas Berggruen
Nicolas Berggruen (; born 10 August 1961) is a US-based billionaire investor and philanthropist. Born in Paris, France, he is a dual German and American citizen. He is the founder and president of Berggruen Holdings, a private investment company ...
, a financier and art collector
Death
Berggruen died at the
American Hospital of Paris in
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine (; 'Neuilly-on-Seine'), also known simply as Neuilly, is an urban Communes of France, commune in the Hauts-de-Seine Departments of France, department just west of Paris in France. Immediately adjacent to the city, north of the ...
on 23 February 2007. At his own wish he was buried in the forest cemetery in
Waldfriedhof Dahlem, in Berlin. His funeral was attended by German chancellor
Angela Merkel, and then-president
Horst Köhler
Horst Köhler (; 22 February 1943 – 1 February 2025) was a German politician who served as President of Germany from 2004 to 2010. As the candidate of the two Christian Democratic sister parties, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, CDU ...
, among others.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berggruen, Heinz
1914 births
2007 deaths
Businesspeople from Berlin
German art collectors
German art dealers
American art collectors
American art dealers
American Jews
German emigrants to the United States
American people of German-Jewish descent
20th-century art collectors
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Berggruen family
United States Army personnel of World War II
Art collectors from Paris