Peggy Guggenheim
Nov 11, 2015 | by Becky Oeltjenbruns
Peggy in 1937
The name Guggenheim conjures up one image for me: the stunning, spiral beauty of a museum gifted to an otherwise linear New York City skyscape in 1959. But thanks to a new documentary, I’ve gained another inspiring vision: a sassy, determined art collector who cut a dashing figure across the artistic landscape: Peggy Guggenheim. Peggy came into this world around the turn of the century – translation, at a time when women were starting to find their voice but were still mainly seen and not heard. Up to that point her family’s history was defined solely by the men. Her father Benjamin died during the Titanic tragedy of 1912 and her uncle, Solomon, started the famous foundation that my favorite architect and resident bad boy, Frank Lloyd Wright, would go on to work for in the 1950s.
Once Peggy hit the scene all bets were off and her work (and oftentimes lifestyle choices) determined the trajectory of her family story. Peggy’s tale is not about rising from the drudgery of poverty, rather it’s about creating a name for one’s self beyond the shadow of a vast inheritance. (By the time she turned 21 she inherited about $34 million in today’s dollars – definitely nothing to snuff at!) Rather than sitting around in luxurious silks eating bon bons, Peggy got started on a dream. She began to work as a clerk at a funky bookstore and became a full-fledged member of the bohemian community. That led, naturally, to the epicenter of all things bohemian, France. She moved to Paris and befriended struggling artists (among them Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, who would go on to become her mentor). Her circle went beyond painters and sculptors to include poets and novelists. This was a gal who loved learning about self-expression and storytelling. Peggy’s appreciation for understanding other people’s perspectives is a thread that continued throughout her life.
Her art collecting journey really begins in the age of Hollywood glamour – the mid-1930s. With the threat of Nazi Germany looming, she began to hurriedly purchase abstract and Surrealist art, ensuring that many of the pieces we know and love today were not destroyed. After all, these paintings were not exactly “Hitler friendly.” Her first gallery, titled Guggenheim Jeune, was a gallery with a capital G. She focused on balancing established artists with the up-and-coming crowd. Her gallery was never stagnant and these vibrant exhibitions of Alexander Calder, Jean Arp, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Braque (to name a few) catapulted her reputation within the artistic community.
This gallery, however, was a largely ambitious and experimental project. An astute businesswoman, she realized she wasn’t making the profit she needed to keep the lights on or keep promoting new talent she met along the way. With her uncle Solomon as an inspiration, she decided to set her sights on a museum. The business plan needed a bit of polish and as she was headed to Paris to get some additional funding, war with Germany officially began. With a pocket full of cash, she set began her new task: preservation. Saving the artistic masterpieces of her generation became her sole ambition. As she described it, buying a picture a day was her rhythm for several months. The approaching Nazi military forced her to regroup stateside. Peggy opened a new gallery (ironically enough, within a museum): The Art of This Century Gallery. Eager patrons were treated to Surrealist, Cubist, Abstract, and Kinetic art. Nothing quite like it had been seen before and Peggy was fueled by her creation’s avant garde nature (and the reactions that came with it).
Let’s take a pause point and consider this simple fact for one moment: in about a decade’s time Peggy had changed her destiny from heiress to boho chic book clerk to serious art collector and business woman. This, my dear readers, is a women who dreams big and works hard. While her life was marked with tragedy, Peggy never let it stop her. She always found a way to work through it and embrace life. Even when the world was at war, she was still hopeful and determined to save pieces of our collective history.
After WWII, and on the heels of a divorce, she closed her ground-breaking gallery and settled in Venice, Italy. She reused the then-dilapidated Greek Pavilion and she focused on displayingAmerican pieces (this strategy, by the way, was pretty cutting edge for European-based galleries at the time). Venice remained her base camp and she passed away there in 1979. Over the course of her life she never stopped collecting. Peggy’s body of work is considered one of the most important collections of the 20th century. Flip through a modern art book and pick an artist or a painting and chances are Peggy not only knew that artist but encouraged him or her – maybe even inspired the final outcome! Not too shabby I’d say.
The house that Peggy built
I’ll end with a twist – based on everything I’ve shared, by now you’re undoubtedly wowed by her accomplishments. But although Peggy lived for art, she was also a gloriously complicated person who never apologized for being an individual. Consider how strong and complicated women are received in today’s media. Travel back in your mind to the 1940s/50s, place yourself within the conservative culture of Leave it to Beaver, and think of how a rich, intelligent, and sexual woman would have been portrayed. Peggy loved to love and made no apologies for her lifestyle – and indeed – did not allow it to define her professional life. (Although her legacy is sadly still tarnished by her social activities.) Fun side note, in true Peggy style, she published a memoir shortly after WWII that gave many a housewife a glimpse into her glamorous and amorous life. She didn’t let it define her career, but she definitely did run away from a part of herself – she celebrated it
I encourage you to check out the documentary, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict. Here we’re introduced to a young Peggy who shaved off her eyebrows for kicks, learn more about how her taste in art was snubbed by the “serious collector”, and discover how her eclectic visions perfectly aligned with the creative circle of friends she kept. Despite your own thoughts about her lifestyle, what is resoundingly clear is that art was her calling. How rarely do we get an opportunity to find what truly makes us happy, what clicks – what defines us? In honor of Peggy’s courage and ambition, I hope all of us decide to be a little braver and follow our dreams! And if you’re already going for it – keep on going! And lastly, let’s take a page from Peggy’s book and surround ourselves with amazing dogs, just for good measure…
For our dear readers: what do you think about women’s personal lives overshadowing their professional work? Do you find our media coverage has improved in this area over the last fifty years, digressed, or stayed the same?