Cézanne to Giacometti: highlights from Museum Berggruen / Neue Nationalgalerie, installation view, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, 2025, installation view. Photo: NGA
How was European modernism received in Australia? The new winter blockbuster exhibition at the National Gallery in Canberra attempts to provide an answer.
The story begins with Heinz Berggruen (1914-2007), a middle-class German-Jewish man who had to flee his native Germany when Hitler came to power.
While in exile in America, he developed a passion for art. After the war, he returned to Europe and set up shop in Paris as an art dealer and collector. He became friends with some of Europe’s top avant-garde artists, including Pablo Picasso, and by the time he died, he had amassed a formidable collection.
It was sold to the German state in 2000. While its premises in Berlin are being renovated, highlights from the collection are touring Asia and Europe. It has now arrived for its sole Australian outing at the National Gallery of Australia.
Paul Klee, Above and below (Drüber und drunter), 1932, Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie—Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz. On long-term loan from the Berggruen family, Photo © bpk/ Nationalgalerie, SMB, Museum Berggruen/Jens Ziehe.
It is an uneven collection, but it contains some of the most significant names in European modernism, including Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, and Alberto Giacometti.
Of what has come to Australia, the spectacular highlights are, without doubt, the 36 works by Paul Klee.
He is such an unbelievably wonderful artist who has had a profound impact on the course of 20th-century art as a practitioner and a thinker.
Works of his, including Red nuances, 1921, Still life with plant and window, 1927, Necropolis, 1929 and Above and below, 1932, in themselves make a visit to the show mandatory to all with an interest in art.
Klee’s sense of intimacy, playfulness, innovative use of technique and materials impacted many Australian artists and, I gather, this is the largest exhibition of Klee’s work in this country to date.
Paul Cézanne, Portrait of Madame Cézanne, c 1885, Museum Berggruen, Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie—Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz. On long-term loan from the Berggruen family. Photo: ©bpk/ Nationalgalerie, SMB, Museum Berggruen/Jens Ziehe.
Paul Cézanne’s Portrait of Madame Cézanne, c. 1885, is an important painting that is well worth seeing; however, some of the smaller sketches included in the show are a bit ordinary.
In the early 20th century, many Australian artists warmed to the idea of Cézanne as a modernist, without having seen an original painting by the master. Now, when their paintings are juxtaposed with their supposed source of inspiration, they appear somewhat unconvincing.
A true and unreformed Australian adherent to the ideas of Cézanne was John Passmore and he is celebrated in this exhibition with his glorious Landscape looking down to a small town c.1945.
John Passmore, Landscape looking down to a small town c.1945, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 1980 © Elinor Wrobel OAM Trustee. Photo: NGA
To deny Picasso’s importance in any discussion of the development of 20th-century modernism in art is plain silly, but to argue that he never painted a dud painting is even sillier.
A number of his less successful works are included in the 23 Picasso works on display, as well as a couple of outstanding examples, including Dora Maar with green fingernails, 1936, and Woman in a multicoloured hat, 1939. Many 20th-century Australian artists embraced Picasso, at least for a passing phase in their development, and some have been brought together for this show.
Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar with green fingernails, 1936, Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie—Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz NG MB 53/2000 © Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2025. Photo: ©bpk/ Nationalgalerie, SMB, Museum Berggruen/Jens Ziehe.
A surprising highlight in this show is Alberto Giacometti’s Tall nude standing III, 1960. At approximately 2.5 metres in height, the bronze is effectively and dramatically presented in the gallery. It is presented as a climax and conclusion to the show.
Alberto Giacometti, Tall nude standing III (Grande femme debout III), 1960 (cast 1981), Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie—Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz © Succession Alberto Giacometti. ADAGP/Copyright Agency 2025, Photo: Musée de l’Orangerie, Heinz Berggruen, a Dealer and his Collection, 2025.
The gallery needs to be congratulated for not simply presenting a ‘masterpieces’ exhibition from some minor gallery touring its treasures while its premises are undergoing refurbishment. We have already had too many such exhibitions in Canberra.
In this exhibition, the gallery has curated a collection of modernist work, attempting to make it relevant to an Australian audience. Where possible, they have incorporated as many Australian women artists as they could.
The Berggruen collection, unlike the Musée d’Orsay, the Courtauld or MoMA, is relatively unknown to Australian audiences and most of us are seeing these works for the first time.
Klee once said: “The more horrible this world [as today, for instance], the more abstract our art, whereas a happy world brings forth an art of the here and now.” Perhaps Klee put his finger on why there is such an upsurge of interest in avant-garde modernism today.
Paul Klee, Necropolis (Nekropolis) 1929, Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie—Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz NG MB 138/2000, Photo: ©bpk/ Nationalgalerie, SMB, Museum Berggruen/Jens Ziehe.
Cézanne to Giacometti is at the National Gallery of Australia until 21 September, daily from 10 am to 5 pm. Admission charges apply.
