Peggy Guggenheim

by Francine Prose

Pobre niña rica, coleccionista de maridos y de cuadros, fundadora de la galería y de la colección que dieron entidad al arte del siglo XX, viajera, amante de la noche y de la vida social, gran lectora, divertida, manipuladora y difícil. El perfil humano y profesional de Peggy Guggenheim se desvela por fin en esta biografía breve pero completa, basada en el propio relato de su protagonista y el de quienes la conocieron. De fondo, todo el mundo cultural europeo y estadounidense del último siglo.

Peggy Guggenheim, nos dice Francine Prose, “nació con la necesidad de enervar a la gente, o en todo caso la desarrolló muy pronto, y este impulso le resultó muy útil para abordar un proyecto vital que consistió en mostrar al público un tipo de arte verdaderamente innovador, y a veces incluso inquietante. Su muy personal combinación de procacidad y de apocamiento, de timidez y de necesidad de llamar la atención, la ayudó a establecer vínculos entre el mundo del arte del siglo XX y el mundo del glamour, de los cotilleos y de los medios de comunicación”.

“Yo no soy una coleccionista. Yo soy un museo”, Peggy Guggenheim

Genres: Art, Biography, Nonfiction, Audiobook, History, Biography Memoir, Womens

248 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2015

About the author

Francine Prose is the author of twenty works of fiction. Her novel A Changed Man won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim and a Fulbright, a Director's Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Prose is a former president of PEN American Center, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her most recent book is Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Katerina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Как можно было написать ТАКУЮ бессмысленную книжку, я не понимаю.

Что мы узнаем о Пегги Гуггенхайм:
1) она была еврейкой;
2) евреям в конце 30х - начале 40х в Европе жилось не оч;
3) автор недовольна тем, что все биографы пишут, что у Гуггенхайм был big nose and big money.

Ну, Окей, Гугл, а сама что-то приличное ты написать могла?

[Fredrik deBoer · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, what a gem. What an absolute gem. You don't have to be intrinsically interested in Peggy Guggenheim to get a ton out of this brief, tightly constructed, effortlessly readable biography. The modern art scene of the 20th century American midcentury was as wild as you'd imagine, with so many incredible characters and moments. Pollock and Ernst and Dali, the incomparable Duchamp.... And Guggenheim is an immensely interesting protagonist, spoiled and wise, brilliant and self-destructive. Her life is an object lesson in the fact that someone can be both incredibly privileged and incredibly sad, and her rivalry with her uncle Sol has the ring of someone trying desperately to assert their value in a family where they were never allowed to feel any.

If nothing else, read it for the sheer number of remarkable stories that are contained, which Prose tells masterfully. (She is really skilled at telling stories in a wry, restrained manner, just letting the reader see her arched eyebrows in her writing.) For example, the story where Laurence Veil travels to Mexico to retrieve Peggy's daughter, who had contracted venereal disease on Errol Flynn's yacht and then fallen in love with a pearl diver named Chango....

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

A smart biography about a fascinating woman that taught me a few new things about modern art.

[Jacqueline Cubillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Biografía básica de esta mujer que pasó a la historia por la colección de arte que formó a lo largo de su vida, con obras muy adelantadas a su época y de artistas que han pasado a ser leyendas. Muy interesante.

[Magdelanye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now that the shock of the modern has given way to the blase, we can look back and wonder what was all the fuss about regarding 'modern art'. Depending on preference, people do gravitate towards the pleasing, but one of arts major functions is to awaken the viewer to an unknown point of view, which might come as a shock. When the shock value has worn off, what is left to treasure?

Peggy G stood out as a certain type of entitled rich who aspire to be recognized for the quality
(as well as quantity) of their taste and its expression. To be modern in all things has perennially been the height of sophistication, and with no tiresome limits on her spending. she could afford to be generous with her attentions.

But PG according to FP suffered from a deep sense of inferiority developed in the hothouse of her tempestuous and competitive relationships, commencing in her family of origin. She worked hard to develop the rapid banter that passed for wit and withstood the critical eye. Were her many lovers interested more in her or her money? And what about her nose? Her outrageous hats tell a story in themselves. Yet I found her, in her photos, quite lovely (despite the hats) and mischievously thoughtful.

...she assumed over decades , a public face she adopted and which over time became indistinguishable from her authentic self, as frequently happens. p14

And we are fortunate that her passion for extremes, for life and for people, extended into art.
Unlucky in love, an inconsistent mother, she yet developed a real flair for detecting talent in its raw state, Her gallery showings and happenings jump started a whole movement. That most of this vanguard were not especially likable or attractive to postmodern sensibilities is irrelevant. They were the ones who took the first fumbling steps to cross over the great divides that classify people according to their origins, and their experiments in art as in loving paved the way for liberation movements for all kinds.

[Kriste · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I am not art colector, I am a museum", Peggy Guggeheim.

After visiting her palazzo in Venise and adorning the surrealist paintings, she has collected through the years, I was interested to read more about herself.

What I have learned is that inspite of her money, most men abused her as was like " normal" in these days. She fell in love with many men and had incredible amount of lovers, most that profited her money.

And she did have shopping spree, but thar was to buy a painting each day while Paris once. However she bought a lot of art through her lice.

Honestly loved it, such a brave woman and she has made the history. If you're visiting Venice more than recommended to visit her museum.

[La Central · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Rica, poderosa y extravagante. Su vida personal, salpicada de innumerables escándalos que ella misma relató, en un acto de exhibicionimo, en su autobiografía Confesiones de una adicta al arte, ha dado mucho que hablar. Pero mas allá de todo eso, Peggy Guggenheim es, principalmente, una de las coleccionistas y mecenas mas influyente del siglo XX y a la que la historia del arte le debe tanto.

Tras haber heredado una gran fortuna, y con tan solo 21 años, partió hacia la Europa de entreguerras. De la mano de Duchamp, conoció el arte moderno, se relacionó con los artistas de vanguardia y empezó a dedicar parte de su dinero a dar apoyo a pintores y escultores con la adquisición de sus obras.

Su deseo de provocar y llamar la atención marcó todos los aspectos de su vida pero sobre todo esta afición a escandalizar se vio reflejada en su empeño por mostrar obras de arte innovadoras y chocantes. Quizá ahora, desde nuestro punto de vista, nos parece obvia la importancia de un Kandinsky o un Giacometti pero no lo era tanto entonces, cuando los nazis perseguían lo que denominaban “arte degenerado”. Es significativo como el Museo del Louvre rechaza proteger su colección ante la invasión alemana por considerar que no merecía la pena salvar esas obras demasiado modernas. Es probable que ni siquiera las considerara arte.

Sin embargo, la colección de Peggy fue crucial, no solo para impulsar el surrealismo y el cubismo sino, especialmente, para la creación del expresionimos abstracto. Sus piezas permitieron a los artistas de la Escuela de Nueva York conocer de primera mano los movimientos artísticos que se estaban gestando en Europa. Y estos tuvieron un papel decisivo en el desarrollo de un estilo propiamente estadounidense y en la obra de su máximo exponente: Jackson Pollock, quien acabaría convirtiéndose, en palabras del crítico de arte Clement Greemberg, “en el pintor mas grande que Estados Unidos ha producido”. Raquel Ungo

[Andie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a biography of Peggy Guggenheim who promoted avant-guarde artists like Man Ray and Jackson Pollock in her gallery in Midtown Manhattan and later in the museum she established in her Venetian palazzo. Never an easy person to deal with, she embraced modern art with both hands and didn't care who it shocked. An interesting portrait o a one-of-a-kind American.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't know that much about Peggy going into this biography. I wanted to learn more about her after finishing a biography of Leonora Carrington. The entire 1941 flight from Europe episode with Leonora, Leonora's Mexican lover(then husband), Max Ernst as both Peggy & Leonora's lover, Peggy, Peggy's 2 teenage kids, Peggy's ex-husband and his current wife - it was like a serious screwball comedy, if that makes sense. I kept thinking it would make a great movie. Anyway, Carrington's biography presented the events from the perspective of Carrington so I wanted to read about it from Guggenheim's perspective.

I appreciated how Prose discussed some of the more egregious past comments about Peggy - the antisemitism, the sex shaming, the comments about her looks....it was surprising to read about how people were so quick to attack her, especially those she helped out a lot. She got a lot of flack over the years so I found her ability to push forward with her plans for art collecting and opening art galleries impressive. She could have crumbled under the stress of being a woman in the art world, but didn't.

Prose didn't shy from discussing the negative traits of Peggy, especially concerning her parenting of Sindbad and Pegeen (those names!). Peggy took the hands off, selfish style of parenting that wealthy people of that era did and magnified it by 100. When she wasn't ignoring them, she was being overly familiar, discussing in detail her sex life with them. Just what every kid wants to hear about, their mom's latest lover. Sindbad rebelled by being sporty and outdoorsy and seemed to be able to escape Peggy. Pegeen bore the brunt of Peggy's terrible mothering. It was sad reading about Pegeen's attempts to win her mother's attention. And that obit Peggy wrote about Pegeen! She was like a mother and a sister to Peggy?!?! Well, that attitude certainly explains a lot.

Peggy's attempts to numb herself, self-medicate in a sense, through compulsive sex and abusive affairs were depressing to read about. I didn't get the impression that sex was a happy thing for her. Her need to have the man in her life physically abuse her....wow. Prose writes about trying not to victim blame when discussing these abusive relationships but needing to portray the whole story, that Peggy in a sense was only happy once she got a man to hit her because that then meant he cared about her. I feel like Prose left out a lot of crazy that must have happened in Peggy's childhood. She was drawn to angry, alcoholic men. A form of self-punishment? The need for abasement? I felt sorry for her.

This book is a good introduction to Peggy and the mid century art world she inhabited. A good launching off point to deeper, more detailed biographies of the people of that era.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very excited to read about the woman who almost single handedly brought modern art to the world's attention. I adore the art but reading this has disappointed me as to the qualities and characteristics of the artists and atmosphere that brought this movement to life. Very little to admire from this bunch of extreme narcissists and Peggy was the biggest of them all. That said if I ever revisit Venice I am not missing her museum!


https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...

http://www.guggenheim.org

[Izzy Vogel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a peculiar book. I did not know anything about Peggy Guggenheim; except of her very cool friend group and amazing collection of art. This book spoke about her life, but it left an impression of a bored, annoying woman with too much money.

Someone with such good and innovative taste could not have been only that, right? I’m definitely going to see if I can read something else about her, to see where that brings me.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very interested in learning about how Peggy Guggenheim put together her collection and about her early galleries. But I found the book to be repetitive, primarily about Guggenheim's failed marriages and affairs and poor parenting skills. Disappointing.

[Carole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a definitive biography. Rather it is one of a series of works published by Yale University Press called Jewish Lives. In a breezy way, the book effectively outlines Guggenheim's remarkable life and her impact on the development of modern art. Francine Prose covers Guggenheim's interest in and collection of art in Europe by the "degenerate" group Hitler deplored. She managed to get the collection to the U.S. as war was breaking out in Europe. In doing so, she gave the US art community its first significant exposure to this avant-garde art. This in turn inspired American artists to test new approaches and led to the rise of Abstract Impressionism and the shift in focus of innovative art from Europe to the United States. She was an early promoter of Jackson Pollock, for example, and was at the center of a world of creative people. Guggenheim is portrayed as insecure and lacking confidence in her own taste; she sought advice from many sources. This insecurity coexisted with a compulsion to shock and disturb. Her incredible personal life and inept motherhood is a story in itself, and Prose covers it in gossipy detail. A good read and introduction to the art world in post-war USA.

[Bruce · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was disappointed that this biography seemed to dwell almost exclusively on the chaotic, sordid, downright lurid details of Guggenheim's personal life while giving virtually no space to explaining what she saw in surrealist and abstract expressionist art that caused her to champion the artists who were creating a whole new direction for visual art in the post-WWII era, and why she devoted much of her considerable wealth to acquiring it. A missed opportunity.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and informative view of an important person in the arts world. I didn't know anything much about her before, so it was a good learning experience for me, but pictured a sad and strange life.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A refreshingly compassionate and even kind look at an unconventional woman responsible for bringing the tradition of art patronage into the 20th century and beyond.

[Ognjen Lopusina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Овај есеј, слеш писмени састав, слеш биографија, се бави освртом на живот и каријеру Пеги Гугенхајм, познате колекционарке уметности, озбиљној ријалити играчици и братаници Семјуела Гугенхајма.

Заиста је тешко након читања схватити зашто је ова књига (овако) написана... Делује као да Франсин Проуз нема талента и да је неко приморао да напише ову књигу. Ритам приповедања и однос према ликовима одишу доста јаком курцобољом.

Зато иду 2 звездице. Са друге стране сама материја тачније живот Пеги Гугенхајм може да стане барабар са најпикантнијим житијима које можете да замислите. Од Титаника на којем је изгубила оца до армије селебритија који су статирали у њеном ћивоту. На жалост, уместо лаке разбибриге у виду Марићевске глазуре ми овде добијамо натуралистички исприповедану беду свих актера који се појављују. Степен духовне мизерије који срећемо код Пеги, њене ретардиране породице, Макса Ернста, Бекета, Дишана, Полока и свих осталих статиста је толико дубок да ћете у будуће Милијану Кулић и Ивана Маринковића поштовати као просветитеље.

Непатворена гнусоба која избија из сваке поре уметничког бизниса у овој књизи је описана на изузетно ефектан начин.

Тако да без обзира на никакав стил, ова књига може доста тога да вас научи!

[Carolyn Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I visited the Peggy Guggenheim gallery in Venice a long time ago and it was interesting to learn more about her life and art collection. The biography is thematic rather than strictly chronological and that was a little confusing in the beginning but the early section about the outbreak of the Second World War is later placed in context. There's a lot of material about Guggenheim's personal life in the first half and more about her art patronage and palazzo in Venice in the second half. Her family was quite interesting, filled with distinctive characters including her father Benjamin Guggenheim who died in the sinking of the Titanic. Her personal life was very depressing. The audiobook is well read.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting read about one of the premiere art collectors of the 20th century. Single handedly Peggy managed to save a vast collection of modern art from WWII and the Nazis. There is a great description of the museum in Venice in the last chapter.

[Milda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peggy Guggenheim was definitely a very interesting person and her biography is also like an art history. But what annoyed me in the book was a very visible authors opinion about Peggy. A bit more objective view would have worked much better.

[Danielle McClellan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this audio book in fits and starts over a number of weeks. Prose is, as always, an excellent, thoughtful writer, but I was less taken by this book than an earlier biography of Guggenheim, Peggy: The Wayward Guggenheim, that I read in my twenties. Not sure if the difference has more to do with the differences in these books or my own age and shifting interests.

[Mona · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you haven’t heard of Peggy Guggenheim you’re missing out. An art collector from a famous family Peggy travelled the world buying art.
Peggy supported and showcased a young Jackson Pollock at her gallery. The author delves into Peggy’s life, she was one interesting lady.

[Riitta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such an interesting and terrible life Peggy had. Never felt happier with my uninteresting and pleasant life.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

giving this a 5/5, even though I don’t fee so ecstatic about Peggy Guggenheim

[Bel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew nothing about Peggy Guggenheim going in and now I know some stuff, so I guess this book achieved its aim. I liked how it was quite tightly written and not completely chronological.

[Amelia Cowie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never know how to rate biographies but god what a life Peggy Guggenheim had.

[IsabelRower · Rating 4 out of 5]

She slayed

[Jax · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have seen many lives like Peggy’s in tabloids and magazine format shows. The stories vary based on the “thing” that drives them. Engaging in profligate attention-seeking behavior in response to an inattentive mother or father. Cycling through friends and lovers in hopes of validation. Surrounding oneself with personages who will enable or abuse. Using sensuality as a proxy for plainness and poor self esteem.They are often rich and important and loved, but their lives are—please excuse the cliche—absolute train wrecks.

The picture Prose paints of Peggy Guggenheim is a disturbing one. Though Prose points to some positives, Peggy’s insecurity, restlessness, cruelty, cravings, lack of empathy, and love affairs fraught with abuse shine brightest in this biography. Indeed, Peggy’s friend Emily Coleman wrote that she understood why Peggy was attracted to Surrealism. “Many of the tenets on which the movement was based—the desire to shock, to challenge and overturn convention, to unleash the unconscious, to engage in frank discussions of sex—seem like a description of Peggy’s personality.” Emily will also say that Peggy’s most serious character flaw is her lack of empathy, the inability to see how her behavior impacted others. Emily believed that characteristic is “far more problematic than the flaws of which she was more often accused: promiscuity, shallowness, stinginess, and a sense of humor that sometimes crossed over into malice.”

It is her role in the art world that led me to this book. Her story is peopled with the Who’s Who of modern art greats, among others. For example, Samuel Beckett is the man who talked her out of her preference for Old Masters, arguing that it was her duty to buy modern art. Marcel Duchamp was one of her mentors of sorts and supervised the hanging of her first show. She spent time with Gala and Dali, shopping for paintings in Paris, and helped the pioneer of Surrealism, Max Ernst, to escape France after the Nazi invasion. Peggy discovered Jackson Pollock and helped launch his career, as she did for many others.

While I enjoyed reading about art and Peggy’s role in amassing such an outstanding collection, I don’t think I could have taken any more of Peggy’s personal life. It’s a short book at less than two hundred pages and, with that small amount of real estate, Prose has done a fine job covering this unusual woman’s life.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sympathetic and brief biography about Peggy Guggenheim, socialite and art collector, who brought Surrealism to America and Abstract Expressionism to Venice. A fascinating woman full of contradictions, she was independent, intelligent, and ahead of her time, while also insecure, presenting herself as a much less accomplished person than she really was. Though family life was touched by tragedy, she developed into an influential and powerful collector and promoter of contemporary art. The author, Francine Prose, also finds her to be an excellent writer, especially graceful in her description of Venice.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

such a sad life....but a brilliant advocate of the arts