Released at the end of last year, this compelling film gives an interesting inside view of the life of Peggy Guggenheim, an extraordinary woman who considers the discovery of Jackson Pollock as her first achievement and her collection as the second.
Jackson Pollock, c.1955 (detail), American Photographer, (20th century) / Bridgeman Images
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is composed of masterworks of Cubism, Futurism, European Abstractionism, Metaphysical Painting, Surrealism, and American Abstract Expressionism. Among the artists represented are Klee, Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, Léger, Brancusi, Severini, Balla, Dalí, Magritte, Delaunay, Kupka, Miró, Picabia, Mondrian, Kandinsky, van Doesburg, Giacometti, Ernst, Pollock, Rothko, Calder, Moore, and Marini.
Counter-Composition, 1925-26 (oil on canvas), Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) / Peggy Guggenheim Foundation, Venice, Italy / De Agostini Picture Library / Bridgeman Images
The audience has the opportunity to get to know this extraordinary woman, who was married to Max Ernst, through interview tapes and conversations with relatives, artists, industry experts and archival imagery and footage.
Max Ernst, Paris, c.1955 (detail) / Photo © Michel Sima / Bridgeman Images
I personally love films that tell their story through historical pictures – it reminds me of searching through old albums, letters, cards, brochures and books that I found as a child in the attic of my grandparents’ house. Still today I continue finding new perspectives on my family history and have new questions.
Peggy Guggenheim founded her museum under circumstances that were not easy in Venice in Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, where she also lived. Today there are 2 more Guggenheim museums open to the public, in New York and Bilbao, with Guggenheim Abu Dhabi expected to be opened in 2017.
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Always worth visiting also for their architecture, these are the upcoming exhibitions in Guggenheim museums in 2016:
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, now the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, on the Grand Canal, begun in 1749 by Lorenzo Boschetti (photo) / Venice, Italy / © Sarah Quill / Bridgeman Images
- Venice: Jack Tworkov (Jan – Apr 2016)
- Bilbao: Andy Warhol (Feb – Oct 2016)
- New York: Moholy-Nagy (May – Sept 2016)
- Palazzo Strozzi, Florence: From Kandinsky to Pollock. The Art of the Guggenheim Collections (Mar – Jul 2016)
Improvisation 28 (Second Version), 1912, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) / Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA / Bridgeman Images
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