Some of the most famous names in modern art are about to hang on Biscayne Bay. Picasso-Klee-Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen opens Thursday, Oct. 29, at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, bringing nearly 100 works from Berlin's Museum Berggruen to downtown Miami through Feb. 28, 2027. It is the largest presentation of the Berggruen collection ever mounted on the East Coast.

For a South Florida audience, that is a genuine shift. Seeing Picasso, Matisse and Klee in depth has usually meant a flight to New York or Europe. This season, it means a drive to Museum Park.

Whose collection this is

Heinz Berggruen (1914 to 2007) was an art dealer and collector who spent more than 40 years assembling masterworks by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee and Alberto Giacometti, often through personal relationships with the artists themselves. His collection now lives at the Museum Berggruen, the public institution in Berlin that carries his name.

The show at PAMM draws from that museum, from the Berggruen family's own holdings and from PAMM's collection. It has already traveled to Japan, China, France, Italy and Spain. Miami is its stop in the United States.

What you will see

The exhibition traces how early modern art took shape, through color, abstraction, figuration and the arrival of Cubism. It is organized around the classic subjects: still lifes, interiors, portraits and landscapes. Alongside the three headline names are works by Paul Cézanne, Georges Braque and Giacometti, whose gaunt, stretched sculptures are some of the most recognizable objects of the 20th century.

A few of the works PAMM has named:

  • Pablo Picasso, La Lecture (Woman Reading), 1953
  • Paul Klee, Landschaft in Blau (Landscape in Blue), 1917
  • Henri Matisse's maquette for a cover of the art magazine Verve, 1943, one of the cut-outs the exhibition highlights
  • Paul Cézanne, Étude de pomme (Study of an Apple), around 1885, and Portrait de Madame Cézanne, around 1885

The deepest runs belong to Picasso and Klee, whose long careers the show follows across decades. Matisse arrives through his celebrated paper cut-outs, which still look startlingly fresh.

The exhibition is curated by Natalie Zimmer of the Museum Berggruen and Maritza M. Lacayo, associate curator at PAMM. Lead support comes from Kenneth C. Griffin and Griffin Catalyst, Patricia and William Kleh, Aaron and Dorothy Podhurst and an anonymous donor.

A big season at PAMM

The Berggruen show lands in a full house. Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols, which PAMM calls the most significant presentation of Jean-Michel Basquiat's work in South Florida to date, is on view through June 2027. Anina Major: The Sacred Mangrove opens Oct. 8, and Zoë Buckman: Show Me Your Bruises, Then follows on Nov. 5. A single visit this fall can take you from Cézanne's apples to Basquiat's crowns.

How to go

PAMM is at 1103 Biscayne Blvd., between the Arsht Center and Kaseya Center. It is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday. It is closed Tuesday and Wednesday, so plan around that.

Museum admission is $18 for adults and $14 for seniors 62 and up, students and youth 7 to 18. Children 6 and under get in free. Admission is free for everyone on Thursdays after 5 p.m., and always free for active military and veterans, health care workers and first responders, and Florida educators. Check the visit page for any timed-entry details as opening day nears.

The best play: a Thursday evening in November, after the opening rush, when the doors stay open until 9 and entry is free after 5. Walk the Berggruen galleries first, then the Basquiat rooms, then step outside for the bay at dusk.