Olivier Berggruen

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

Born in Winterthur, Switzerland, Berggruen is the son of noted German art collector Heinz Berggruen and actress Bettina Moissi. He graduated from the College of 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. He briefly worked at the auction house Sotheby's in London, before serving as curator at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt. He has lectured at numerous institutions, including Carnegie Mellon University and the Paris Institute of Political Studies. He currently serves as chairman of the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was the recipient of the 2009 Berliner Zeitung Media Award.

Berggruen has curated a number of international exhibitions, at venues including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the French Academy in Rome. He is a contributor to the Huffington Post, for which he writes articles on art, literature, and philosophy. 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, and for Gagosian Gallery, for which he contributed with University of Cambridge professor Mary Jacobus. 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 discontinuity of modernism in Picasso's ballets. He is currently working on two book projects, including a history of collecting and a study of Wittgenstein's aesthetics, and will be lecturing at the Courtauld Institute in the 2016-17 academic year.

Berggruen lives in New York City with his wife, a doctor, and two children. His brother is billionaire and philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen. He serves on various committees at institutions across the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate Modern, Picasso Museum in Paris, Courtauld Institute, Museum Berggruen, and Mariinsky Ballet.

Selected publications

• The Writing of Art, Pushkin Press, 2012.
• "The Fragmented Self" in Dieter Buchart ed., Jean-Michel Baquiat: 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.

External links

• Profile of Olivier Berggruen in the Wall Street Journal
• Obituary of Anita Brookner by Olivier Berggruen in ''Artforum
• "Collecting Art: Philanthropy or Self-Glorification?" by Olivier Berggruen in the Huffington Post