Heinz Berggruen

German, 1914 - 2007

Explore Selected Works

Circles, stars, birds, and crescent shapes are painted against a tent-shaped structure in this pale-toned, abstracted watercolor and drawing. The tent shape has three peaks near the top and is stepped across the bottom. Where what might be called the roof flares over the straighter side walls are an R to the left and, to the right, an N with a curling, red swirl off the top right stem of the letter. Three gray birds with oversized blue eyes are painted in a field of other geometric shapes in shades of cobalt blue, muted purple, mint green, and faint yellow. A cluster of nested, curving pink lines in the lower left corner suggest a rose. The background is mostly white with three circles in shades of purple, and the paper is saturated with red and yellow that bleed into each other across the bottom edge. The artist signed the top left corner of the paper, “Klee.” The watercolor is mounted on cardboard. On that cardboard is written, “1917 92” to the lower left and “Persische Nachtigallen” to the lower right.
Paul Klee, Persische Nachtigallen (Persian Nightingales), 1917, gouache, watercolor, and pen and black ink over graphite on laid paper, mounted on cardboard; the sheet bordered at the top with yellow paper strip mounted to support, Gift of Catherine Gamble Curran and Family, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1990.59.2

Persische Nachtigallen (Persian Nightingales)

Paul Klee · 1917 · gouache, watercolor, and pen and black ink over graphite on laid paper, mounted on cardboard; the sheet bordered at the top with yellow paper strip mounted to support ·  Accession ID  1990.59.2

We look down onto a pile with a newspaper, theater program, pipe, a black and white checkerboard, and other objects painted as abstracted, geometric forms on a tabletop in this nearly square still life painting. Near the center, a rectangular form like a newspaper is painted with the headline “LE JOURNAL.” Next to it, to our left, a playbill has the name “FANTOMAS” written in black against a parakeet-green background, above black mask and a “65” in a circle below. There are blocks of stylized, painted wood grain and other areas of color that do not line up with the objects represented. For instance, this conflicting pattern means that the lettering of the newspaper changes from white against the brown woodgrain to green against white. Moreover, seemingly unconnected to the objects, colors, and spaces below, yet more objects like a goblet and bowl of fruit are painted with white outlines that overlay the wood and objects below. A checkerboard pattern is layered under the woodgrain and papers, near the lower right corner, and another pattern like architectural molding carved with stylized leaves runs along the back, above the papers. The papers and a few other objects seem to cast shadows on the blocks of color behind them, so areas of lilac purple at the top left and burgundy red along the right edge read visually as a background behind everything. The artist signed the work in black on the lower left corner: “Juan Gris 8-1915.”
Juan Gris, Fantômas, 1915, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 1976.59.1

Fantômas

Juan Gris · 1915 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1976.59.1

Bibliography

1988

  • Cocks, Anna Somers. "The Apollo Portrait: Heinz Berggruen." APollo 128 (1988): 119-121

1990

  • Simon, Robin. "Heinz Berggruen, The Art of the Collector." Apollo 132 (1990): 372-373.

2001

  • Richardson, John. "Heinz Berggruen: Collector and Dealer." In The Berggruen Collection, auction sale catalogue, Phillips, NY, 7 May 2001.