Peggy Guggenheim

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Peggy Guggenheim

• Patron of the Arts

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A Brief Biography

• Born into a wealthy NY family in 1898 as
  Marguerite Guggenheim, Peggy was the daughter of
  Benjamin Guggenheim, and the niece of Solomon
  Guggenheim.
• http//www.guggenheim-venice.it/english/

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• Benjamin Guggenheim died while smoking cigars and
  sipping brandy on a big ship that hit an iceberg.
  Though unfaithful to his wife, he was kind
  enough to see that his mistress, a French singer
  named Leontine Aubart, made it safely off the
  boat. After she left, he and his valet dressed
  in their best clothes. Guggenheim is known for
  stating, Weve dressed in our best, and are
  prepared to go down like gentlemen.
• In truth, Benjamin Guggenheim lived largely off
  the fortune his father, Meyer Guggenheim, made
  from metals. He owned a lot of metal, and
  soldiers in WW1 needed it.

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Heres Benjamin Guggenheim and the ship he died
on, which Hollywood made a movie about, starring
heart-throb Leonardo DiCaprio.
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Guggenheim_Coll
ection http//www.titanicmovie.com/
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Copper one type of metal that made Meyer
Guggenheim rich.
http//www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/minerals.copcomp.
htm
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• Peggy used to work at a bookstore, but decided
  she wanted to be cool like all the artists she
  read about, so she moved to Paris, France and
  became friends with them. She liked them because
  they were so avant-garde, and they liked her
  because she had money and could fund their art.

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• She became friends with people like Man Ray,
  Constantin Brancusi, and Marcel Duchamp. She
  married artist Laurence Vail, who was a Dada
  sculptor and writer.
• Dada was a movement of ridiculous art. The
  people who created the ridiculous art were people
  who had grown cynical of humanity, and had
  developed a nihilistic world view. They
  developed this world view because they had gotten
  sick of seeing people killing each other in WW1,
  the war that caused Meyer Guggenheim to amass his
  fortune, which ultimately led to Peggy Guggenheim
  being a well-to-do woman who supported the
  ridiculous artists.

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• After a few years of relative peace, another war
  had to be started to fuel the economy, which
  supported well-to-do folks like Peggy Guggenheim,
  who supported ridiculous artists. This war was
  called WW2.

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• Peggys artist friends started trying all kinds
  of styles after WW2 began. Eventually, art
  people came up with names for these styles, such
  as surrealism, abstract expressionism,
  cubism, and several other isms, Im sure.
• Peggy purchased as much of her friends art as
  she could.

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• In 1942, Peggy went to back to New York, where
  she opened a gallery called Art of This Century,
  where she displayed all of the art she had
  purchased from her friends.
• She continued to support artists, like Jackson
  Pollock and Max Ernst (whom she married, but got
  divorced from four years later).

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Max Ernst
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Guggenheim_Coll
ection
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Artwork by Jackson Pollock
http//moma.org/collection/depts/paint_sculpt/blow
ups/paint_sculpt_019.html
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• Eventually, Peggy put her collection of art in a
  one-story building in Venice, Italy. Here is a
  picture of the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni

http//www.culturevulture.net/ArtandArch/PeggyGugg
enheim.htm
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• Though you cant see it in this view of the
  museum, there is a bronze statue outside by
  Marino Marini done in 1948. The statue features
  a man on a horse with a huge erection. Rumor has
  it, that the penis can actually be screwed-off
  (no pun intended) so that it can be hidden from
  view when important, but easily offended people
  come to visit.

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• There is not much more to say about Peggy
  Guggenheim, except that she died in 1979 and is
  buried next to her dogs.

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May she rest in peace.
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Guggenheim_Coll
ection