Louise Weller, Head of Collections and Exhibitions, writes: This limited-edition book is a valued addition to Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery’s archive and will form an important element of our exhibition Peggy Guggenheim: Petersfield to Palazzo (15 June – 5 October 2024). The book, which serves as a catalogue of Guggenheim’s personal modern art collection, was published in the same year that Guggenheim opened her ground-breaking gallery (also called Art of This Century) in New York. Peggy Guggenheim, a world-renowned art patron and collector, began her lifetime commitment to art in the 1930s when she lived for five years at Yew Tree Cottage, Petersfield, between 1934 and 1939.
The exhibition will highlight this often-overlooked connection between Peggy Guggenheim and Petersfield in Hampshire. During this period, Guggenheim opened her first gallery Guggenheim Jeune in Cork Street, London, which held exhibitions by European artists, including Jean Art and Yves Tanguy, alongside modern British artists, including Henry Moore and Julian Trevelyan. Guggenheim had an ambition to open a modern art museum in London, but these plans were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. Guggenheim moved back to Paris where she began to buy art, often directly from the artist’s studio, with increasing haste. She negotiated safe passage out of German-occupied France to New York for these works by avant-garde artists and they formed the basis for her collection, which she continued to grow and display. The book stands as a testament to her vision and determination to support modern art and artists at a time when much of their work was, at worst, denigrated or merely misunderstood and undervalued.
In 1949, Guggenheim left New York and moved to Venice, where she found a home for herself and her collection, at the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. Today, it is part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and one of the most visited museums in the world.
Including this extraordinary book in the Petersfield exhibition is central to telling the fascinating story of Peggy Guggenheim, a woman who, in the male-dominated art world of the 20th century, established a leading modern art collection, and committed herself and her financial resources to the support of emerging and avant-garde artists. Our visitors will have the rare opportunity to see this book, which Peggy Guggenheim edited herself, alongside artwork from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Importantly, after the end of the exhibition, the book, the purchase of which was made possible by the generous support of FNL, will remain in our archive, and serve as a lasting connection between the history of Petersfield and the international life of Peggy Guggenheim.
