Olivier Berggruen

Olivier Berggruen
Nicolas Berggruen and Olivier Berggruen photographed by Oliver Mark, Berlin 2008
Born
Olivier Berggruen

(1963-09-14) 14 September 1963 (age 61)
Winterthur, Switzerland
Citizenship
  • United States
  • Germany
EducationÉcole alsacienne
Alma materBrown University (AB)
Courtauld Institute of Art (AM)
University of London (AM)
Occupation(s)Art historian, curator
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
Desiree Hayford-Welsing
​
​
(m. 1998)​
Children2
Parents
Relatives
WebsiteOfficial website

Olivier Berggruen (born 14 September 1963) is a German-American art historian and curator,[1][2] described by the Wall Street Journal as playing "a pivotal role in the art world."[3]

Early life and education

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Born in Winterthur, Switzerland, Berggruen is the son of noted German art collector Heinz Berggruen and actress Bettina Moissi. He graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and completed his graduate studies at the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London, where he studied with Anita Brookner, who was his advisor.[4][5]

Career

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He briefly worked at the auction house Sotheby's in London, before serving as curator at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt.[6][7][8] He has lectured at numerous institutions, including Carnegie Mellon University, the Frick Collection, The National Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C., the 92nd Street Y, the National Gallery of Canada, NYU's Global Institute for Advanced Study, and the Paris Institute of Political Studies.[9][10][11] He served as committee chairman of the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was the recipient of the 2009 Berliner Zeitung Media Award.[12]

Berggruen has curated a number of international exhibitions, such as a retrospective of Yves Klein at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and one of Beatrice Caracciolo at the French Academy in Rome.[13] He is a contributor to the Huffington Post, for which he writes articles on art, literature, and philosophy.[14] Additionally, he has written extensively on Picasso, Yves Klein, and Henri Matisse, among others, for organizations including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, publications such as Artforum and The Print Quarterly, and for Gagosian Gallery, for which he contributed with University of Cambridge professor Mary Jacobus.[15][16] His first book, The Writing of Art, is a series of essays, which explores aesthetics through the lens of twentieth-century art, tracing movements and trends such as the ontological discontinuity of modernism in Picasso's ballets. In 2016, the Italian government commissioned Berggruen to curate an exhibition to celebrate the centennial of Picasso's Italian journey. “Picasso: From Cubism to Classicism, 1915 to 1925,” was held at Rome's Scuderie del Quirinale from September 22, 2017, through January 21st, 2018.[17][18] In 2019, he co-curated an exhibition on Picasso and antiquity at the Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, which won a 2019 Global Fine Art Award.[19][20]

Berggruen was guest editor for the July/August 2020 edition of The Brooklyn Rail, and in 2021 curated a Picasso exhibition at Acquavella Galleries.[21][22][23][24] He is an artistic adviser to the Menuhin Festival Gstaad.[25]

In 2024, Berggruen’s book Formes du désir: Une brève histoire de la collection d’art, was published in French.[26]

Personal life

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Berggruen lives in New York City with his wife, Desiree, whom he met while both were studying at Brown. She is a physician, and together they have two children, Tobias and Ana.[27] Berggruen has additional homes in Paris and Gstaad, Switzerland.[28] His brother is billionaire and philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen; he additionally has two half-siblings, John, a San Francisco-based art dealer, and Helen, a painter.[29][30][31][32] He serves on various committees at institutions across the world, including Brown University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate Modern, Picasso Museum in Paris, Courtauld Institute, Museum Berggruen, and Mariinsky Ballet.[33][34] He additionally sits on the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall, the Berggruen Institute, and Brown University's John Carter Brown Library.[35][36][37] He has also donated to the campaigns of several Democratic Party candidates, including Barack Obama and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.[38]

Selected publications

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  • The Writing of Art, Pushkin Press, 2012.[39]
  • "The Fragmented Self" in Dieter Buchart ed., Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now's the Time, Prestel, 2015.
  • "The Theater as Metaphor" in Olivier Berggruen and Max Hollein eds., Picasso and the Theater, Hantje Cantz, 2007.
  • Editor (with Max Holbein), Henri Matisse: Drawing with Scissors: Masterpieces from the Late Years, Prestel, 2006.
  • “Ed Ruscha: Ribbon of Words” in Ed Ruscha: The Drawn Word, Edited with Essay, Windsor Press (2004), pp. 1 – 7
  • “The Prints of Jean-Michel Basquiat”, Print Quarterly, XXVI (2009): pp. 28 – 38
  • “The Future of Painting” in Portraits Lost in Space: George Condo, Pace Wildenstein, New York (1999), pp. 30 – 34
  • “The Realm of Pure Sensations” in Playing With Form: Neoconcrete Art From Brazil, Edited with Essay, Dickinson New York (2011), pp. 19 – 27
  • “Picasso & Bacon: Painting the Other Self” in Francis Bacon and the Tradition of Art, Edited by Wilfried Seipel, Barbara Steffen, Christoph Vitali, Skira Editore S.p.A. (2003), pp. 71 – 83
  • “The Summons to Living Things to Return Home” in Cy Twombly: Bacchus, Gagosian Gallery, 2005, pp. 5 –15
  • “The Landscape of the Mind” in Agnes Martin, Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG Zurich (2008)

References

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  1. ^ A. K. Thomson, "'Homeless billionaire' Nicolas Berggruen on putting down LA roots", The Financial Times, November 13, 2017. "Olivier, [Nicholas] Berggruen's brother, is an influential New York-based art historian and curator."
  2. ^ Allen, Greg (5 November 2006). "Rule No. 1: Don't Yell, 'My Kid Could Do That'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  3. ^ Mary M. Lane, "A Family's Legacy Grows in Berlin", The Wall Street Journal
  4. ^ "venetia kapernekas gallery". Venetiakapernekas.com. 13 June 2008. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  5. ^ "Olivier Berggruen on Anita Brookner (1928–2016) - artforum.com / passages". Artforum.com. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  6. ^ Korman, Sam (14 October 2011). "The Brazilian Form - News - Art in America". Artinamericamagazine.com. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  7. ^ "Arts & Sociétés". Artsetsocietes.org. 29 June 2006. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  8. ^ Poggi, Christine (2 January 2019). "Stage at the Edge of the Sea: Picasso's Scenographic Imagination". The Art Bulletin. 101 (1): 90–118. doi:10.1080/00043079.2018.1504550. ISSN 0004-3079. S2CID 192534803.
  9. ^ "In Conversation: Olivier Berggruen and Anabelle Kienle Poňka". www.gallery.ca. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
  10. ^ ""Goncourt Brothers and the Taste for the Eighteenth Century," Tuesday, January 28, 2020, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. | H-Announce | H-Net". networks.h-net.org. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  11. ^ "The Future of Classical Music". Global Institute for Advanced Study. 8 February 2016. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
  12. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). www.metmuseum.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 August 2016. Retrieved 13 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  13. ^ "Guggenheim Museum Bilbao" (PDF). Sismus.org. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  14. ^ "Olivier Berggruen". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  15. ^ "Picasso Black and White". Guggenheim.org. 24 December 2012. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  16. ^ "Cy Twombly". Gagosian.com. 11 December 2015. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  17. ^ Alexandra Wolfe."Picasso's Productive Roman Holiday, Wall Street Journal, September 8th, 2017.
  18. ^ McDonald, Alison (9 October 2017). "Picasso in Italy: An Interview with Olivier Berggruen". Gagosian Quarterly.
  19. ^ "'Picasso and Antiquity. Line and Clay' attracted 20K visitors in the first two months". Museum of Cycladic Art. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
  20. ^ "2019 Award Winners and Honorable Mentions". Global Fine Art Awards. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
  21. ^ Berggruen, Olivier (9 July 2020). "State of Affairs". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  22. ^ Rhodes, David (2 November 2021). "Picasso: Seven Decades of Drawing". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  23. ^ Bors, Chris (3 November 2021). "Pablo Picasso". Artforum. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  24. ^ "The Critic's Notebook | The New Criterion". 26 October 2021. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  25. ^ "Organisation of the Gstaad Menuhin Festival & Academy". www.gstaadmenuhinfestival.ch. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  26. ^ "Olivier Berggruen : Formes du désir - Les presses du réel (book)". www.lespressesdureel.com. Retrieved 20 October 2024.
  27. ^ "The Curator — Olivier Berggruen - Steinway & Sons". www.steinway.com. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
  28. ^ Tschanz, Hans-Ueli. "The Berggruen Family and the Gstaad Connection to the Art World: An Encounter with Olivier Berggruen". Gstaad My Love.
  29. ^ Riding, Alan (27 February 2007). "Heinz Berggruen, Influential Picasso Collector, Dies at 93". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  30. ^ Ward, Vicky (11 May 2016). "Nicolas Berggreun Interview- Why Nicolas Berggreun is Creating an Institute for Geniuses". Townandcountrymag.com. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  31. ^ "Jacques Herzog explains the spheres in his design for the Berggruen Institute | Design & Architecture". blogs.kcrw.com. 5 September 2017. Retrieved 17 June 2018. "[Nicolas] Berggruen [is the] son of the late Heinz Berggruen, a prominent art dealer, and brother of art critic and historian Olivier Berggruen."
  32. ^ "The T&C 50: The Most Influential Families in Media, Art, and Culture". Town & Country. 17 October 2018. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
  33. ^ "Mariinsky Foundation of America". mariinsky.us. Retrieved 24 June 2016.
  34. ^ Board of Governors, John Carter Brown Library of Brown University
  35. ^ "Board of Directors Archives". Berggruen Institute. Retrieved 22 June 2020.
  36. ^ "Board of Trustees". www.carnegiehall.org. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
  37. ^ "Board of Governors | John Carter Brown Library". jcblibrary.org. Retrieved 22 June 2020.
  38. ^ "Browse Individual contributions". FEC.gov. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
  39. ^ "Olivier Berggruen, The Writing of Art". PhilPapers.org. 25 March 2012. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
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