Heinz Berggruen obit

Heinz Berggruen, a German-born Jewish art collector who in the mid-1990’s made a powerful gesture of reconciliation by moving his modern art collection to Berlin, died outside Paris on Friday. He was 93. . .

Mr. Berggruen, who fled Hitler’s Germany for the United States in 1936, made his name in postwar Paris as a gallery owner who enjoyed a close relationship with Picasso and was also considered a specialist in the works of Van Gogh, Cézanne, Matisse, Paul Klee, Hans Arp and Giacometti.

Like many leading art dealers, he became a collector in his own right and, in 1980, gave up his gallery in order to focus his energy on enriching — and sharing — his collection. He continued to acquire new art, but he also loaned works to major exhibitions and donated others to museums in the United States and Europe.

But it was his decision to display a good part of his collection in the city he had fled decades earlier that turned him into a celebrity outside the world of art.

For Germany, the move not only symbolized a German Jew’s willingness to turn the page on the past, but it also filled a hole in Berlin’s art collections which had been largely stripped of so-called degenerate modern art by the Nazi regime.

Just this past weekend some of us were discussing the American vs the European art scene, and in particular the difficulty European artists have getting recognized in Europe (and especially mainland Europe). The Nazis are in large part to blame, for killing or driving out the leading dealers -- many of whom were Jewish, and many of whom ended up in New York or London. But Europe's present-day rulers haven't exactly been dealer-friendly, either. A friend in Paris recently registered as a business, and was shocked to receive a demand from the authorities for a 10,000 Euro downpayment on taxes on income he had yet to earn! Is "entrepreneur" really a French word?

The extent to which dealers have influenced taste, patronage, and historical judgment has often been underappreciated. As a counterexample, however, the Ambroise Vollard exhibition which recently closed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art should be noted (it has just opened at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it will stay until May; it will make its final stop at the Musée d’Orsay).

Posted by David on February 28, 2007 12:16 PM