Peggy's Collection

Canal Grande

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is located in the Dorsoduro neighborhood of Venezia. It was the last privately owned building on Canal Grande and is now the site of one of the most important collections of Modern art in Europe.

Peggy was born into a wealthy New York family in 1898 and after her father died on the Titanic she came into a sizable fortune, and thus had the means to support many artists. She did not get the idea to buy art until she had an affair with Samuel Beckett who supported Modern art and referred to it as a living thing. With the help of non other than Marcel Duchamp, in the late 1930's she began a "diet" of a painting a day. She opened a gallery in London for a year giving several artists their first shows. (Kandinsky!) She had a sizable collection by the time she had to flee Europe during WWII, and acquired even more works as payment for helping other artists escape. (She even bought a sculpture the day the Nazis invaded France.) She helped Max Ernst escape and at the end of the year they were married. (Although it didn't last long, I think maybe he wanted a visa and she wanted paintings, who knows?) The Lourve snubbed her collection as not worthy to be hidden in their storage so she was forced to hide it all in a barn in the south of France.

Palazzo Venier dei Leoni is the small white building on the right. It was supposed to be the largest built on the Canal in the 1750s, but only the ground floor was completed. It is thought that another wealthy family prevented it's construction, not wanting their view to be obstructed.

After the war, Peggy successfully shipped her collection back to New York in crates labeled "household goods". She opened a museum in NYC, where she also discovered and supported artists. (Pollock!)

Peggy moved to Venice in 1949, and is now buried in the giardino of the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni which was her home, along with several of her dogs. They were like children to her, in fact one of them was even named Pegeen after her actual daughter, who died of a pill overdose. (Would you ever name your dog in memoriam of your child? This should give you a small glimpse of the crazy that was Peggy) Until her death in 1979, she made Venezia her own(she was declared an honorary citizen in 1962). She had a private gondola and wore earrings designed by Calder and Tanguy, sunglasses by Melcarth. In a nutshell she was a nut, but a very important one.

Peggy's collection included over 250 works of art, 50 of which are considered masterpieces. So she was also a smart nut.