The Gerard Bonnier Collection

Gerard Bonnier (1917-1987), director of the Albert Bonnier publishing house in 1953-1978, bequeathed works from his collection to Moderna Museet in 1989. The collection comprises mainly classical modernism and is conspicuously the result of diligent and knowledgeable efforts. Gerard Bonnier was the chairman of Föreningen för nutida konst (Society of Contemporary Art) in 1948-1951, a forerunner of the Friends of Moderna Museet, which he chaired from 1961 to 1977. Through these two activities, he also promoted many of the acquisitions that have put their stamp on the Moderna Museet collection. In the book Donation Gerard Bonnier (1989), Ulf Linde (1929-2013), art critic and close friend of Gerard Bonnier, describes Bonnier’s collection as: “... a work with its own laws that he [Gerard Bonnier] wanted to explore and yield to.” The collection includes Joan Mirós Head of Catalan Peasant, 1925, Pablo Picassos The Painter from 1930, and Juan Gris Fruit Bowl on Blue Table Cloth from 1916.