PEGGY GUGGENHEIM COLLECTION Venice Italy Review – Right-Sized

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM COLLECTION Venice Italy Review – Right-Sized -- historic collection of avant-garde, abstract and surreal art

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM Venice Italy
ANGEL OF THE CITY (1948) by Marino Marini

How fun to think of the Venice Guggenheim’s message to the sex-averse bishop gliding past its luxurious palace grounds by gondola!  

Dare we call it a “screw you!” message?  How else would you describe the screw-it-on-screw-it-off genital of Marino Marini’s 1948 bronze work Angel of the City?  When the bishop would glide by on his gondola in the grand canal bordering the palace, the “Angel’s” member could be unscrewed and taken off.  As soon as the coast  was clear, this screw on member could be screwed back on.

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM Venice Italy
Entrance to the garden
PEGGY GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM Venice Italy
THE CLOVEN VISCOUNT (1998) by Mimmo Paladino
PEGGY GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM Venice Italy
SINGLE FORM (1961) by Barbara Hepworth
PEGGY GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM Venice Italy
From right to left: STANDING WOMAN (1947) Alberto Giacometti; PRESENCE (1967) Rosalda Gilardi; TWO FIGURES (1950-52) Luciano Minguzzi
PEGGY GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM Venice Italy
Right to left UNTITLED (2007) Anish Kapoor; ROARING LION II (1956) Mirko Basaldella

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM COLLECTION Helps You Imagine Peggy Guggenheim

One imagines that the late Peggy Guggenheim would have been happier to be alive in those parts of today’s world where patriarchal norms are no longer given an automatic salute.  Her life, after all, was first and foremost about collecting new expressions of modern art that turned old ideas of classical painting and sculpture on their head.  More, her personal life had been turned upside down by the patriarchy-soaked fascism enveloping Europe before and during World War II, forcing her to flee to America.  It was only in 1947/48 when she returned to Europe, bringing some of her famed collections to the Venice Biennale.  Soon after, Guggenheim acquired Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal in Venice, which today is the European home of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, an adjunct of NYC’s Guggenheim Museum. 

For the time-strapped tourist and lover of contemporary art, a visit to this site and collections is a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED top pick for your time.  This photographer/writer team found every work on its walls or in its halls to be a treasure.  Picasso, Miró, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Giacometti, Magritte and more--- this is a collection of the Who’s Who of abstract, surrealist and avant-garde art.  Better, these treasures are all displayed with ample space that allows them—and you—to breathe.  If you too tend to museum feet and brain stimulation overload in many of the world’s grand museum halls, you will likely find the size of this palace collection to be pleasantly manageable.   Though you can’t quite see how it was once entirely a home and not a museum, you do see that a bit with a dining room space, a fireplace, or chairs in places where they were back in Peggy’s day.  Better still, you can take a break and go into the sculpture gardens for a breather and sit near eccentric Peggy’s grave where she is buried with her dogs. 

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM Venice Italy
Peggy Guggenheim and her dogs' graves

The museum also hosts special exhibits and works donated to the Guggenheim Foundation to add to the palace exhibits.  The huge takeaway though--and perhaps too stunning to digest in too quick a gulp—is that it was Peggy Guggenheim, more than anyone else you can possibly list, who has defined our sense of what is quality in abstract, surreal, and avant-garde art.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

For more information on the Peggy Guggenheim Collections in Venice visit the Peggy Guggenheim Collections website. 

Or, to help arrange a visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Collections—and maybe even arrange an interview with Peggy Guggenheim’s personal gondolier!! -- as well other Venice adventures contact Ornella Naccari of ON-View Travel Agency, a member of the Divertimento Group.

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