The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a modern art museum on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. The museum was originally the private collection of the American heiress Peggy Guggenheim, who began displaying the artworks to the public seasonally in 1951. After her death in 1979. it passed to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which eventually opened the collection year-round. The collection is housed in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an 18th century palace, which was Guggenheim’s home.
The collection is principally based on the personal art collection of Peggy Guggenheim, a former wife of artist Max Ernst and a niece of the mining magnate, Solomon R. Guggenheim. She collected the artworks mostly between 1938 and 1946, buying works in Europe “in dizzying succession” as World War II began, and later in America, where she discovered the talent of Jackson Pollock, among others. The museum “houses an impressive selection of modern art.
The core mission of the museum is to present the personal collection of Peggy Guggenheim herself. The collection holds major works of Cubism, Futurism, Metaphysical painting, European abstraction, avant-garde sculpture, Surrealism, and American Abstract Expressionism, by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. These include Picasso (The Poet, On the Beach), Braque (The Clarinet), Duchamp (Sad Young Man on a Train), Léger, Brancusi (Maiastra, Bird in Space), Severini (Sea=Dancer), Picabia (Very Rare Picture on Earth), de Chirico (The Red Tower, The Nostalgia of the Poet), Mondrian (Composition No. 1 with Grey and Red 1938 / Composition with Red 1939), Kandinsky (Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2, White Cross), Miró (Seated Woman II), Giacometti (Woman with Her Throat Cut, Woman Walking), Klee (Magic Garden), Ernst (The Kiss, Attirement of the Bride), Magritte (Empire of Light), Dalí (Birth of Liquid Desires), Pollock (The Moon Woman, Alchemy), Gorky (Untitled), Calder (Arc of Petals) and Marini (Angel of the City).
Opening times:
Daily 10 am – 6 pm
Closed Tuesdays, January 9, February 20, December 25
Open national holidays, including May 1
Address:
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni
Dorsoduro 701
I-30123 Venezia
Italy
Telephone: +39 041 240 5411
Fax: +39.041.520.6885
Internet:
info@guggenheim-venice.it
http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/