Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)
October 29, 2026 –February 28, 2027
The landmark exhibition brings together nearly 100 works from the Museum Berggruen and the Berggruen family collection, alongside select works from PAMM’s permanent collection, to present one of the most important European collections of twentieth-century Modern art ever assembled. It is among the first museum exhibitions in Miami centered on canonical European Modernism at this scale, and PAMM’s first exhibition devoted exclusively to Modern masterpieces.
The collection owes its name to the passionate art dealer, collector, and émigré Heinz Berggruen (1914–2007), who spent over four decades assembling masterworks by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, Alberto Giacometti, Georges Braque, and Paul Cézanne, among others. Born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Berggruen fled Nazi Germany to the United States in 1936 before eventually returning to Europe, where he developed enduring friendships with many of the twentieth century’s most influential artists. His collection reflects not only exceptional connoisseurship, but also a deeply personal vision shaped by exile, migration, and cultural exchange that defined the postwar period. Seen together, the works illuminate the artistic innovations of the 1900s while offering a powerful lens through which to understand the moments that shaped them.
“Presenting this exhibition at PAMM is both an institutional milestone and an opportunity to broaden access to some of the defining works of twentieth-century art,” said PAMM Associate Curator Maritza M. Lacayo. “By bringing the Museum Berggruen collection into conversation with works from PAMM’s permanent collection, we’ve created a presentation that reflects Miami’s unique cultural position while inviting audiences to experience these familiar masterpieces through new historical and geographic perspectives.”
Watercolor, pencil, pen, and ink on primed paper on cardboard. 11 1/5 x 13 x 1 3/4 inches overall. On long-term loan from the Berggruen family. Courtesy Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Photo: Dietmar Katz
This is the first time that PAMM has dedicated its largest galleries entirely to Modern art. Organized thematically around still life, portraiture, interiors, landscape, and the emergence of Cubism, the exhibition brings together painting, sculpture, drawing, watercolor, collage, and prints to reveal unexpected conversations across artists and movements. Rather than separating works by artist or chronology, the installation highlights shared artistic questions and formal innovations, encouraging visitors to encounter familiar masterpieces in new ways.
Alongside defining works of European Modernism are works from PAMM’s permanent collection of Latin American Modern masters—including Diego Rivera, Joaquín Torres-García, and Wifredo Lam. The presentation draws connections across Europe and the Americas, opening new dialogues around topics like exile and migration, themes that hold particular resonance in Miami and reinforce PAMM’s role as a place where global art histories can be experienced through contemporary perspectives.
Among the exhibition’s highlights are
Pablo Picasso’s La Lecture (Woman Reading) (1953), which reflects the artist’s lifelong engagement with portraiture and the expressive possibilities of color and form;
Portrait de Jaume Sabartés (Portrait of Jaume Sabartés) (1904), a celebrated example from Picasso’s Blue Period;
Paul Klee’s luminous Landschaft in Blau (Landscape in Blue) (1917); (above)
Henri Matisse’s iconic cut-out Éléments végétaux (Vegetal Elements) (1947);
Intérieur d’Atelier à Nice (In the Studio in Nice) (1929), one of Matisse’s celebrated studio interiors;
Paul Cézanne’s Portrait de Madame Cézanne (Portrait of Madame Cézanne) (c. 1885); and Alberto Giacometti’s signature elongated sculptures, among many other masterworks spanning nearly a century of artistic innovation.
“One of the great strengths of this international tour is that each presentation is shaped by the context of its host institution. As the works travel in changing constellations and enter into new dialogues, they reveal connections across cultures, institutions, and histories,” said Museum Berggruen Curator Natalie Zimmer. “In this sense, the tour has become a kind of laboratory for seeing modern art differently—challenging established interpretations and opening the collection to new audiences and communities around the world. The interpretation at PAMM expands the conversation beyond European Modernism to broader histories of artistic exchange across the Americas. We are delighted to see Heinz Berggruen’s collection continue to resonate in new ways and to reach audiences in a city whose international character makes it an especially meaningful place for these stories to be told.”
