The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is one of the most important museums of twentieth century art in Italy. It is located in Peggy Guggenheim’s former home, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice.
‘I dedicated myself to my collection. A collection means hard work. It was what I wanted to do and I made it my life’s work. I am not an art collector. I am a museum.’ Peggy Guggenheim
Guggenheim was born in New York on August 26, 1898, and was the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, founder of the famed collection in New York. Peggy spent her life involved and enthralled by art and the Avant Garde. Growing up in New York, she move to Paris with her husband and soon found herself at the heart of Parisian bohème. Many of her acquaintances of the time, such as Constantin Brancusi, Djuna Barnes, and Marcel Duchamp, were to become lifelong friends. After the war, she returned to Europe, making Venice her home and acquiring the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an unfinished mid-eighteenth-century building on the Grand Canal, where she spent the rest of her life.
The Palazzo, of which only the ground floor of a planned five was completed, has a wonderful garden which offered Peggy the space to display her growing sculpture collection. One now enters through the temporary exhibition space and shop (a new addition since my first visit in the late nineties) and into the garden area before entering the main building.
Sculptures shown in the images are: ‘In the Streets of Athens’, Max Ernst 1960, ‘Two is One’, Isamu Noguchi 1964, ‘Single Form (Chûn Quoit)’, Barbara Hepworth 1961, ‘Changing Place, Changing Time, Changing Thoughts, Changing Future’, Maurizio Nannucci 2003, ‘Incomplete Open Cube 6/8’, Sol LeWitt 1974, ‘Roaring Lion II’, Mirko Basaldella 1956, ‘Three Standing Figures’, Henry Moore 1953, ‘Sphere 4’, Arnaldo Pomodoro 1964, ‘Untitled’, Anish Kapoor 2007 and the final resting place of Peggy Guggenheim’s ashes.
The Palazzo was converted into a gallery after her death and opened to the public, under the management of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1980. She started collecting in 1939 and the first work purchased for her collection was a sculpture by Jean Arp, Head and Shell (ca. 1933). Her friend Samuel Beckett urged her to dedicate herself to contemporary art as it was “a living thing,” and Duchamp introduced her to artists and taught her, as she put it, ‘the difference between abstract and Surrealist art.’
Works shown in the images are: ‘Arc of Petals’, Alexander Calder 1941, ‘Attirement of the Bride’, Max Ernst 1940, ‘The Antipope’, Max Ernst 1942, ‘Empire of Light’, René Magritte 1953-54, ‘Voice of Space’, René Magritte 1931, ‘The Red Tower’, Giorgio de Chirico 1913, ‘Promontory Palace’, Yves Tanguy 1931, ‘Sea, Sun, Earthquake’, Max Ernst 1931, ‘Untitled’, Salvador Dalí 1931, ‘Works shown in the images are: ‘Arc of Petals’, Alexander Calder 1941, ‘Attirement of the Bride’, Max Ernst 1940, ‘The Antipope’, Max Ernst 1942, ‘Empire of Light’, René Magritte 1953-54, ‘Voice of Space’, René Magritte 1931, ‘The Red Tower’, Giorgio de Chirico 1913, ‘Promontory Palace’, Yves Tanguy 1931, ‘Sea, Sun, Earthquake’, Max Ernst 1931, ‘Untitled’, Salvador Dalí 1931, ‘Personage (Autoportrait)’, Robert Motherwell 1943, ‘Men in the City’, Fernand Léger 1919, ‘Upward’, Vasily Kandinsky 1929.
In the small courtyard at the canal side, where boats would moor at the front of the Palazzo, is ‘The Angel of the City’ by Marino Marini.
‘The horse is planted immobile with its neck extended, strained, ears pinned back, and mouth open, conveying affirmation and charged strength associated explicitly with sexual potency.’
Works shown in the images are: ‘Alchemy’, Jackson Pollock 1947, ‘Portrait of Frau P. in the South’, Paul Klee 1924, ‘Setting for a Fairy Tale’, Joseph Cornell 1942, ‘Two Women in Front of a Mirror’, Morris Hirshfield 1943, ‘Seated Pierrot’, Jacques Lipchitz 1922, ‘Windows Open Simultaneously 1st Part, 3rd Motif’, Robert Delaunay 1912, ‘the Poet’, Pablo Picasso 1911, ‘The Clarinet’, Georges Braques 1912, ‘The Regular’, Louis Marcoussis 1920, ‘Unitas’, Piero Dorazio 1965, ‘Counter-Composition XIII’, Theo van Doesburg 1925-26, ‘Head and Shell’, Jean Arp 1933, ‘Stringed Object (Head)’, Henry Moore 1938/56, ‘Untitled’, Adolph Gottlieb 1965.
In a new wing at right angles to the original Palazzo is the Schulhof Collection. In 2012, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof bequeathed eighty works of post-war Italian, European, and American art to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation with the stipulation that they be on view in Venice. The collection includes works from many later 20th century artists who were not in Peggy’s collection.
Works shown in the images are: ‘Flowers’, Andy Warhol 1964, ‘Framework Houses Seigen District, Germany’, Bernd and Hilla Becher 1988, ‘Bleu Red’ and ‘Green Red’, Ellsworth Kelly 1964, ‘Meeting Place 1’, Eduardo Chillida 1964, ‘Untitled (Red)’, Mark Rothko 1968, ‘Birth’, Kenneth Noland 1961, ‘Portrait of the Soldier Lucien Geominne’, Jean Debuffet 1950, ‘Logogriph of Blades’, Jean Debuffet 1966, ‘Untitled’, Cy Twombly 1961, ‘Untitled’, Sam Francis 1958.
On show in the temporary exhibition area when we visited was ‘Marcel Duchamp and the Lure of the Copy‘. This is the first exhibition at the Collection to be devoted exclusively to Duchamp, a long time friend and adviser to Peggy Guggenheim. The show features some sixty artworks dating from 1911 to 1968. These include iconic objects from the permanent collection, such as ‘Nude (Sketch), Sad Young Man in a Train’ (1911) and the ‘Box in a Valise’ (1935–41). The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to examine a significant selection of the artist’s works in relation to one another, an exercise Duchamp frequently argued that was essential to comprehending his work.
Images © Jonathan Dredge, text © Jonathan Dredge and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
Modern Eccentrics 