August 26, 1898 — Multi-millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim was among the 1,500 people who drowned when the Titanic sank in 1912. According to one survivor, he and his valet went from lifeboat to lifeboat ensuring that as many women and children as possible could get in them. Then he changed into evening clothes, put a rose in his buttonhole and was heard to remark: “We've dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.”
Guggenheim, whose fortune lay in mining, smelting and banking, was never seen again. Among the children he left was Marguerite “Peggy” Guggenheim who was born on this day.
Aged only 14 when her father died, Peggy was to use her share of the considerable family fortune developing her passion for collecting and exhibiting works of art. Money was never a problem especially as, on her 21st birthday in 1919, she inherited $2.5 million (about $40 million today). “I put myself on a regime to buy one picture a day,” she later recalled.
In 1938, she opened Guggenheim Jeune, her first gallery, in London, followed three years later by her Art of This Century gallery in New York City. Her exhibitions featured works not only by established artists such as Pablo Picasso but up-and-coming talent including Jackson Pollock.
She would later name her “discovery” of Pollock as her “greatest accomplishment,” ranking higher even than her collection itself.
Guggenheim collected art in Europe and America between 1938 and 1946 and exhibited her collection of paintings and sculpture as she built it. In 1949, after travelling to Italy, she settled in Venice, where she lived and exhibited her collection for the rest of her life.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a modern art museum on the Grand Canal, and is one of the most popular attractions in Venice.
She died on December 23, 1979, aged 81. Her ashes are buried in a corner of the Palazzo garden, near where her 14 beloved Lhasa Apso terrier dogs are buried.
Peggy Guggenheim is famous for her works of art but she also had another collection that aroused her passion: men! Wikipedia states: “According to both Guggenheim and her biographer Anton Gill, it was believed that while living in Europe, she had slept with 1,000 men. She claimed to have had affairs with numerous artists and writers, and in return many artists and others have claimed affairs with her. When asked by conductor Thomas Schippers how many husbands she had, she replied, ‘You mean my own, or other people’s?”
Published: August 14, 2023
Updated: September 9, 2023
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