The biography of Peggy Guuggenheim

She collected the best collection of art of the first half of the 20th century. I opened Jackson Pollock. Had hundreds of lovers. She had an amazing life, and it would be possible to verify this on June 23 on the roof of the Garage Museum, where the CDC holds the only show of Lisa Vriland's life about the life of the galleryman. Father, industrialist, spent time anywhere, not at home, and the mother was more interested in social life than with her daughters.

Because of this, journalists love to write that Peggy grew up unhappy and lonely, but she herself did not complain about her childhood. In an interview with Jacqueline, Weld Huggenheim said that she adored her father and was quite pleased with her mother, who did not pest her excessive guardianship. True, the first 13 years of Peggy’s life were prosperous: in M ​​Benjamin Huggenheim and his secretary decided to get from Europe to the USA at the Titanic.

According to the family legend, Benjamin helped people sit in boats, and he simply did not have enough space there. This tragedy abruptly changed Peggy’s life: her father was rich, but his brothers were even richer, and all her youth she felt a poor relative. The artistic taste barely waiting for adulthood and entering the rights to inheritance, Peggy went to Paris. She fell into the thick of the “roaring twenties”: then the most progressive artists and writers lived in the French capital.

It is there that Guggenheim will begin to be interested in art, producing the films of surrealists and slowly buy paintings. From her father she got thousands of dollars - about 7 million, if you count with the adjustment for a year. She began to invest them in painting. Marseille Duchanes advised her to buy recognized masters - novice artists were cheaper and more promising.

So it turned out that Peggy got a rare talent - intuition. Guuggenheim bought still little -known Picasso, Cocteau, Kandinsky, Tangi, Dali, Pollock, who increased her wealth every day. By the way, not free of charge: recognition in the art community is far from last to be owed by Peggy. Curls and earrings was Peggy Guuggenheim fashionable? In the usual sense, it is unlikely, especially if we talk about the fashion of the first half of the 20th century.

But she definitely had her own style, which over the years was drawn brighter. She cut curly hair briefly, loved feminine dresses in the waist, extravagant capes, funny sunglasses and earrings of one of the steam for Peggy was painted by Yves Tangi. The more she plunged into art, the less glossy and more alive her images became: African dresses, hats with excess decor, feathers.

This explosive aesthetics worked better than the verified “fashion”, and today the stylists use the Guggenheim wardrobe as references for filming. Jackson Pollock is the main evidence of Peggy’s innate flair for genuine talent - Jackson Pollock, the most expensive artist of our time. She idolized Jackson and at first even gave him a salary so that he could quit his job and devote himself to painting there is a version that Pollock became the only man from the environment of Peggy with whom she was friends and not slept.

At the time of Huggenheim’s death, 12 works of the artist belonged, and only these canvases are already a colossal state: one picture of the “metamorphosis”, which Peggy gave the Aiova University, is insured for millions of dollars, the exact price is not announced. He was glorified by Life Magazine, ”says Robert de Niro, the son of the nero-artist, but notes that the success of a genius is still worth Guggenheim.

Pollock was recognized during his lifetime, and when he was once drained from the number of drunk directly on the Chelsea Hotel carpet, one of the restaurant guests advised Peggy to take this carpet with him and insert into the frame: “It will cost millions.” Sex is not a biographer of Peggy who would not write about her insatiable sexual appetite. She told Jacqueline Weld that at the age of 21 she literally dreamed of getting rid of virginity, but she had to wait up to 23 - just then Guggenheim first married.

Seven years later they divorced, and Guggenheim became the mistress of John Holmes, who was married. He was the only love of Peggy, but far from the only man: over five years of the novel, the girl made 7 abortions, "most of which are from Holmes." Until the end of her life, she will choose between motherhood and passion in favor of the latter. In the film “Peggy Guuggenheim: Not a Day without Art,” she says that she dreams of becoming young again and surround herself with lovers.

She never refused to herself - according to rumors, she had about a thousand men and several women, including Iv Tangi and Samuel Becket.

The story about the third husband - the artist of Max Ernst - Peggy begins without abysses: “He had an amazingly beautiful body ...” Two galleries and the Museum in the year of Peggy moved to London to either engage in a publishing business or open a gallery. She stopped at the gallery - it seemed to her that she would be cheaper. So Guggenheim Jeune appeared, which opened an excellent exhibition of Jean Cocteau and in the first year of work brought thousands of pounds of loss.But this did not stop Peggy: she began to buy paintings by young artists who fled from the Second World War and sold canvases for nothing.

Guggenheim bought on the principle of “one picture per day” and concentrated on surrealists, abstract ”and cubists. As a result, in the year in New York, Peggy opened the new gallery The Art of this Century and introduced the public a really impressive collection of contemporary art. People gradually got used to the new currents in painting and could already appreciate the uniqueness of this meeting.

It went for Peggy in Venice in the year, where the Guggenheim Museum later open. Today it is one of the most visited museums of contemporary art in Italy. Children and dogs “Work is my main passion,” Peggy said in an interview, and everyone noticed this: her contemporaries said that she manages to build relationships only with artists and dogs, but not with children. The son of Sinbad grew up with his father, and the daughter of Pegin remained with his mother, who was forever not up to her.

Guggenheim was not a good mother, spoke sharply about the shortcomings of Pegin and even at home could only think about work. At the age of 42, Pegin washed the tranquilizers with alcohol and died - they searched for the reason in her husband, then in her mother, then in an unstable character, then in many years of depression. Of course, there is no direct connection between her death and unhappy childhood.

However, not a daughter or a son, but 14 of her favorite dogs are buried next to Peggy. The woman who became the state after moving to Italy Peggy took up a new project - an exhibition of her private collection as part of the International Biennale. In the year, her unique meeting was shown in the Greek pavilion, and this was the first case in history when the exposition was not devoted to the country, but to an individual.

It was founded by Solomon Guggenheim, who was her uncle and was a famous philanthropist. Nevertheless, he appreciated the contribution of his niece to the popularization of contemporary art: part of the Peggy collection is exhibited in a separate room. True, its explosive character makes itself felt even 37 years after death: the heirs of the galleryist had already sued the museum twice due to the fact that the work is not exhibited as it was spelled out with an iron hand in a will.