Heinz Berggruen's life and career were anything but predictable. Born into a Jewish family in Berlin in 1914, he emigrated to the United States in 1936, with just ten German marks to his name. He initially studied literature and then was introduced to the world of art at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ; after World War II, he returned to Europe and opened his first art gallery, in Paris, in 1947. Both a passionate collector and dealer, Berggruen was guided by his own personal tastes and an unfailing loyalty to his favorite artists, gradually assembling an extraordinary private collection of twentieth-century art. This collection, which has constituted the MuseumBerggruen / Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin since 1996, includes more than a hundred masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, and Alberto Giacometti. Paying tribute to Berggruen's discerning eye, this volume provides a new understanding of the collector-dealer's artistic tastes.