The new exhibition “Heinz Berggruen: The Dealer and His Collection” at the Orangerie features nearly 50 works by Pablo Picasso, including the striking “Large Reclining Nude” (1942). This painting presents a figure with a frozen expression, clenched fists, and nervously crossed legs, lying on a thin mattress in an empty bunker. The figure’s gray-green flesh, reminiscent of a Nazi uniform, evokes a chilling atmosphere of fear and violence, reminiscent of contemporary conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Berggruen described “Large Reclining Nude” as “brutal… but an incredibly exciting painting.” He acquired it in 1997 to ensure its permanent display in Germany. A Jewish refugee who fled Berlin for California in 1936, Berggruen became a successful art dealer in Paris. In 2000, he sold his collection to the German government for a fraction of its worth as a gesture of “forgiveness and reconciliation.” Before this, he had amassed the largest private collection of classical modernism in Europe.
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