I have been looking at this museum almost every day for the last three years (I passed it on the way to dropping the children at kita and on the way to one of my classes) and the only time I attempted to visit, it was closed (memo to self- many museums are closed on Monday in Berlin).
This museum and collection were left to Berlin by Heinz Berggruen, a German Jew who fled the Nazis to the US and, while in Paris after WWII became an extremely influential gallery owner and friend of many artists, especially Picasso.
Berggruen left the art collection in a generous gesture of a low price to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. For this he was awarded the honorary citizenship of Berlin and the Federal Cross of Merit (Grand Cross 2nd Class) of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz, Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern und Schulterband). (cf Wiki above)The museum has a collection of 85 works from Picasso, across his lifetime, as well as other artists that Berggruen collected personally) and I found it exciting and enlightening to look at Picasso's work across 80 years: I have never really liked the works that I saw, but now I see that there are many periods of Picasso that I do like. One of the most confusing points of the work that I have seen is that although Picasso painted in many periods, he did so whenever he wanted to, so one doesn'
Salvador Dali said of Picasso that he was a great painter with no originality, that he was a master of copying styles, and I
This looks amazingly like a Botero,
or does a Botero look amazingly like it?
He outlasted the originators and he had amazing technical skill, though.
While this is an amazing homage to Cranach the Younger
There is an entire section of Klee which I also found fascinating.Klee lost his post at the university of Düsseldorf because he was Jewish and fled to Switzerland, where he died while awaiting naturalization (although his mother was Swiss, at that time, as in Germany, nationality passed through the male bloodline).
Well worth visiting and the audio guide (which is included with admission) is extremely well done and includes some introductions by Heinz Berggruen to his collection and some specific paintings,a s well as some interesting interviews with contemporaries of Picasso.
This is a Berlin State Museum, and if one purchases the annual pass for 40€ one can go to them all (lots of them!) on the pass (80€ includes special exhibits): so far, all the museums have included a free audio guide with entry and I am very glad: they lend quite a bit to an understanding of the material.
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