Solomon Guggenheim Museum: the story of his founding family, 'non-figurative art' and Guggenheim museums around the world - ForumDaily
The article has been automatically translated into English by Google Translate from Russian and has not been edited.
Переклад цього матеріалу українською мовою з російської було автоматично здійснено сервісом Google Translate, без подальшого редагування тексту.
Bu məqalə Google Translate servisi vasitəsi ilə avtomatik olaraq rus dilindən azərbaycan dilinə tərcümə olunmuşdur. Bundan sonra mətn redaktə edilməmişdir.

The Solomon Guggenheim Museum: The Story Of The Founding Family, 'Non-Objective Art' And Guggenheim Museums Around The World

In New York, everyone will show you this museum. Yes, this is not necessary. Moving along Central Park along Fifth Avenue, from a distance you will see the snow-white cup of its main facade, with strictly applied horizontal patterns of windows. Solomon Guggenheim decided to build it at the age of 82. And he spent the last six years of his life fighting ignorance, inertia and hostility. He passed away without ever seeing its opening. Two years later, in Venice, his niece Peggy will present her collection to the audience. But she was 37 years younger than Solomon. The chronicle of their family is an amazing story of how poor refugees from Europe, already in the second generation, managed to become one of the richest families in America. And the technocrat and industrialist Solomon Guggenheim, at a relatively old age, was not only able to comprehend the versatility, philosophy and evolution of the development of painting at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, but also turned into its active promoter and founder of the museum. I hope this story can interest you too.

Photo: Shutterstock

For many of you who love museums and travel around the world, it is easy to understand the logic of Solomon Guggenheim's thinking regarding the location of his museum in New York. Everyone knows Albertopolis in London, the museum quarter in Vienna or the Marais in Paris, the museum embankment in Frankfurt or the museum island in Berlin. There is also such a place in New York - Museum Mile, where its ten famous museums find refuge. It was here that Guggenheim wanted to locate his museum and obtained permission to do so from the city authorities. We will not consider the arguments for and against this decision and discuss whether it would not have been better to locate it on some well-known square with a large view or separately on a huge plot in a park area. This is exactly what Wright, the famous architect of the museum, argued, citing a whole series of arguments against this decision. But Guggenheim paid the money - he made the decision.

As an experienced manager, Solomon knew very well that in ancient times the famous Antwerp jewelers also faced a similar question, and their clever Jewish heads made the most suitable decision for business: to create a special “diamond quarter” by placing several dozen jewelry stores side by side, on the same street. Three quarters of a century have passed since then, and the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, as before, in this very place, on the Museum Mile in New York, continues to amaze and delight its guests.

As you know, the first mention of the Guggenheims in the United States dates back to 1847. It was then that this Jewish family emigrated to Philadelphia from Lengnau, Switzerland (canton of Aargau). How much have you heard about emigration to America from Switzerland, where the majority of the population in those years not only had not heard of anti-Semitism, but had never heard of Jews at all? But this is a special case. The fact is that in the Aargau region bordering Germany they still remembered the old decree that Jews were forbidden to “marry with low-income citizens.” Simon, the grandfather of Solomon Guggenheim (originally from Alsatian Guggenheim - hence the surname) had one son, Meyer, and five daughters. Each of them was entitled to a “dowry of at least 500 guilders,” but the family did not have that kind of money. After the death of their mother, he wanted to remarry the widow Rachel Meyer, but she was also poor, and his store could only barely make ends meet. It was a dead end, and he and Rachel’s family (plus 7 more children) sold all their property and went in search of a better life in the New World.

His son, the founder of the clan, Meyer Guggenheim, was then 19 years old. To feed his huge family, he and his father, from morning to night, without knowing any holidays or weekends, walked the streets of Philadelphia one after another, offering residents all sorts of haberdashery items. When things got better, they divided their spheres of influence. Meyer now had to work in nearby mining towns. It soon became clear that knowledge of the German language was an important advantage there, since the main population came from Holland and perceived it as “their own”. Gradually getting the hang of it, Meyer discovered that housewives were in particular demand for a cleaner for kitchen stoves that were heated with coal. Selling a jar of this product brought him only a cent, but in a month he earned up to $20, and that was already good money. But... for this he had to serve two thousand customers. Then he turned to his client (a German chemist) with a request to determine the composition of the cleaning product. Then, having adapted an old device for stuffing sausages, he set up its production. Putting his father behind the machine, he started selling and now earned 8 cents on each can.

But that was only the beginning. As it later turns out, Meyer never stopped there. He decided to invest the money he earned in another new product - coffee powder. In 1848, coffee in the United States was the drink of the rich, and Guggenheim decided to play on the miners' vanity: they say, why are we worse? But the question came down to price. And Meyer buys the cheapest coffee beans, grinds them, mixes them with chicory and other flavorings. The result was a fairly strong surrogate, the taste of which completely satisfied undemanding miners. By the way, in the Soviet Union they also used a similar method - they launched the production of a cheap coffee drink “Summer”. You can easily imagine how popular this drink was a century earlier. By 1852, trade in cleaning products and coffee powder could already provide a decent income. Soon Meyer married Barbara Myers, whom he met on the ship that brought them to America. She gave him 10 children - 3 girls and 7 boys. They soon moved to the Philadelphia suburb of Green Lane, where Meyer opened a grocery store, which he operated for 20 years.

During the Civil War, Meyer supplied uniforms and food to the northerners, which brought a significant increase to his income. But the children were growing up, he wanted to provide them with a decent education, and this required a sharp increase in income. Then, after analyzing the market situation, he decided to establish the production of lye, a real substitute for soap in those days.

Without thinking twice, he acquired a patent and, quickly establishing production and sales, became a serious competitor in the detergent market. So dangerous that competitors offered to sell them the plant. And he sold it for a decent profit, putting an end to his soap making business. But he did not stop in his gesheft.

With the proceeds, he buys shares in a small section of the unprofitable Kansas railroad, hoping that over time it can be absorbed by the developing network of the Missouri Pacific system. Of course, it was a risk, but ... justified. Having bought 2000 shares for $ 40, he will end up selling them for a $ 300 profit.

And immediately the restless Meyer begins to search for a new field of activity. On the advice of relatives, he finds her in Switzerland, where he urgently sends his two sons to study and organize production and sales. We are talking about the machine production of lace introduced there. Today this business seems unpromising to us. But in the second half of the 100th century, lace was a mandatory element of clothing for women of all ages and classes - from little girls to respectable ladies. It was a XNUMX% success, since in the United States they had no competitors in this area at all.

However, in 1881, the system of constant luck seemed to have crashed. On account of the unpaid debt, Meyer agreed to become one of the owners of two old mines in Colorado. It soon became clear that they were flooded with water and required serious repairs. The funds invested in their launch did not help achieve the desired performance. Partial refunds were also problematic if they were sold. At this moment, unexpected news arrives: a silver-bearing vein and lead deposits have been discovered in the mines.

Stanislav Lec once said: “Chance rules everything. Would you like to know who rules the matter?” But the one who rules it clearly felt sympathy for Meyer: he did not allow the mines to be sold ahead of time, gave him the opportunity to buy out the remaining part and organize production, and suggested that he should also engage in ore processing, which means building a smelter.

But this was a completely different level. Silver and lead are not soap or lace. These are strategic materials. There were very few competent specialists in this area. Not to mention real managers. And then Meyer gathers a family council and invites his sons to close down all their enterprises, including lace, and concentrate entirely on mining. Naturally, they were against it: they have an established business and why should they risk it? But Meyer convinces them: haberdashery will not give them the opportunity to spread their wings, but mining will allow them to reach the international level.

Two years later, the US Congress authorized the Treasury to purchase 4 million ounces of silver a month. Its value jumped from 90 cents an ounce to $ 1,25, and the Guggenheim smelter began to bring in $ 60 thousand a month in profit.

In the early 1890s, Meyer sets a new challenge for his sons: their M.Guggenheim's Sons should become the leading mining company not only in America, but throughout the entire American continent. The first step in achieving this goal was to attempt to expand into Mexico. Daniel Guggenheim is leaving for talks with President Porfirio Diaz. And already on December 12, 1890, he signed a cooperation agreement. It was an incredible success: the Guggenheims not only received a concession for two smelters in Monterrey and Agvascalientes, but also "the right to exploit any Mexican deposit that they explore, lease or buy."

And the company begins to conduct exploration of deposits in Mexico, successfully organizes it in Angola, Chile and Malaysia. As a result, by 1895, the smelters in Pueblo, Monterrey and Agvascalientes alone began to bring the Guggenheims more than $ 1 million in net profit annually.

But the higher they rose, the more powerful their competitors were. And already at the finish line, the all-powerful Rockefeller trust The American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO), which had a capital of $65 million, decided to stop them. The Guggenheims were invited to join the trust agreement - to become one of the components of the overall company. The father and sons refused. Rockefeller did not forgive such things. As usual, the trust decided to simply crush the Guggenheims. However, they still didn’t know who they were dealing with. Against them was not just some firm called Guggenheim and Sons, but six professional Jewish heads. And when a two-month strike suddenly broke out at ASARCO's factories in 1900, they struck. They managed to convince the owners of mining companies in Missouri and Kansas not to stand idle, but to send their ore to Guggenheim processing plants in Mexico. And they themselves sharply increased their production volumes and flooded the market with cheap silver and lead. As a result, by the end of 1900, the Guggenheims' profits exceeded ASARCO's. Despite the fact that the number of Guggenheim mines was four times less than Rockefeller’s.

ASARCO shares began to rapidly fall in price, and Daniel and Solomon quickly began buying them up. The Guggenheims soon had enough shares to call a shareholders meeting. But now they were already dictating the terms: all five brothers joined the board of directors. Daniel became president and chairman of the board, Solomon became chief treasurer, and Isaac, Murray and Simon became members of the board of directors. Ultimately, the Guggenheims ended up with the required 51% stake in ASARCO. It was a real victory. It is generally accepted that their share of the world market for the production of silver, lead and copper is close to 80%.

Evil tongues will say that Meyer ran his business tough, not always with "clean hands." But who said that the "kings" are "angels"? And when he passed away in 1905, his sons were already multimillionaires. Each of them had more than $ 10 million, and by the beginning of the 58th century they had already acquired the unofficial title of "kings of the underworld." The life path of Meyer Guggenheim was another illustration of the effectiveness of the slogan "American Dream", in which over XNUMX years of his life in the United States, a poor street seller of dry goods managed to turn into a multimillionaire with the title "king". He was honorably buried by his sons at the Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn.

The children continued their business successfully. And having gone to retirement, they led a lifestyle that corresponded to their title: they organized social events, collected art objects, created numerous funds. It was they who brought the greatest fame to the Guggenheims in the XNUMXth century.

For example, Murray Guggenheim organized a foundation that sponsored medical research and the construction of a major hospital in New York, the Conservatory at the New York Botanical Gardens, and the Murray and Leonie Guggenheim Memorial Library.

Daniel Guggenheim and his son Harry (an Air Force pilot during World War I) founded the Aeronautics Foundation in 1926, which sponsored scientific research in rocketry and space flight, and also provided funds for the creation of the first Guggenheim School of Aeronautics at New York. -York University. They provided the funds for Charles Lindbergh's first flight from New York to Paris and created the Daniel Guggenheim Medal, one of the most prestigious awards in engineering. It enjoys well-deserved recognition throughout the world, and continues to be awarded annually for the best achievements in technology.

Nevertheless, it was the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation and the museum created on its basis that made their name world famous.

About the Solomon Guggenheim Museum and "non-figurative art"

Solomon was born in 1861, and although he was the fourth son in the family, he always held leading positions in it. Well, how to assess the role of a person who is a commercial director in a family firm? Solomon was always in the places that his father considered most important. When the brothers mastered the "lace" business, his father sent him to Switzerland, where he at the same time studied at the Concordia Institute in Zurich. After returning to America, Solomon is involved in the work of the mining complex. As soon as Daniel has contracts in Mexico, he sets up Compañia de la Gran Fundición Nacional Mexicana there. A few years later, Solomon was already in Alaska, where he founded the Yukon Gold Company as part of the development of the “golden” direction of the family business. And then…

Well, you and I talk about work and work all the time. We promised that in this chapter we will only talk about art and... love. No, not about what came out of the long tongue of his niece Peggy, but about the fact that in 1895 he married Irene Rothschild, who gave him three daughters. Her father, a German emigrant from Württenberg, owned a thriving business producing ready-made clothing for men and women. Having a pedagogical education, she became involved in charity work in her youth - she opened a nursery and kindergarten for working Jewish women. Ultimately, Irene became the director of the New York City Preschool Association and a trustee of the Federation of Jewish Charities. She also took an active part in other organizations in New York.

If we are talking about art, then it should be noted that she understood it well and after marriage, together with her husband, acquired works of old masters, and was aware of the main events taking place in the cultural life of the city and country. So she was a secular lady, and to some extent even business and self-sufficient. It was she, by the way, discussing with her husband the idea of ​​building a future museum, suggested that Frank Lloyd Wright be involved in the development of the project, considering him one of the best architects in the country. As it turned out, she was absolutely right. In 2019, a special commission of UNESCO recognized his work as worthy for inclusion in its lists.

Somehow Irene came up with the idea to order the production of a portrait of Solomon for a contemporary artist. So in 1927, a German artist, Baroness Hilla von Rebay, from a Strasbourg aristocratic family, was invited to the house, who devoted many years to studying painting. She studied in Cologne, Paris, Munich and Berlin, took part in exhibitions with many contemporary artists: Archipenko, Robert Delaunay, Gleizes, Diego Rivera and Otto van Ries. Thanks to Hans Arp in Paris, she met many adherents of the so-called. non-objective art: Kandinsky, Klee, Franz Marc, Chagall and Rudolf Bauer, with whom she was even in love. Everyone wondered how Solomon Guggenheim would look in her portrait? But everything she did was expected. In this quite traditional academic drawing of an elderly gentleman in the chair there was not even a hint of the avant-garde (you can see the portrait here)... Another thing was unexpected. During numerous sessions, she non-stop told him about the triumph of non-objective art, which was then sincerely inspired.

Remember I. Ehrenburg’s story about Fadeev’s meeting with Picasso, at which the writer told the master that his paintings were incomprehensible to people. And as Picasso asked him: “Tell me, Comrade Fadeev, were you taught to read at school?” And, having received an affirmative answer, he asked again: “Okay, but were you taught to understand painting?” Fadeev had no answer to this. But Hilla had one. At her sessions, she tried in every possible way to enlighten Guggenheim and convince him that non-objective painting is real art. For example, she told him about Malevich’s square, that it was something living, not dead. For example, the “grandmother” in the picture is dead, no matter how realistically she is drawn (she is alive in nature), but his square in the picture is just alive, since in reality it does not exist, but in the picture it was born solely thanks to insight artist. The square (unlike the grandmother) is not a copy of any really existing object, and in this sense it is “the first step of pure creativity in art.” Either her messages were so convincing, or the portrait painter was very pretty (find her photos on the Internet: she is smiling radiantly everywhere), but she managed to “convert” Guggenheim to a new faith.

Then she will be accused of “slipping into trust” in order to “foist” pictures of her friends and lovers onto the patron of the arts. A strange accusation. After all, in order to "foist on" it does not need to be taught at all, and "getting into the trust" for the implementation of a specific scam does not at all imply continuation of contacts, free consultations and assistance in purchasing works of artists with whom she never had contacts. In 1930, they visited the workshop of Wassily Kandinsky in Dessau (Germany). Solomon will like Dessau himself, and the Bauhaus Higher School with the workshop of painting and fresco, which he headed, and in which he taught the course "Analytical Drawing", and Kandinsky himself.

Charm and attractiveness Hilla von Rebay is perfectly portrayed in this video of her visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Over time, more than a hundred of his paintings will appear in the Guggenheim collection. In the same year, the Guggenheim will begin showing the public a "new collection of paintings" in his apartment in the Plaza Hotel in New York. The Guggenheim purchases continued with works by Rudolf Bauer, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.

In 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was founded. This move led to the establishment in 1939 of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting at East 54th Street, in a facility that was formerly used to sell cars.

It opened with the Art of Tomorrow exhibition, and Hilla von Rebay became its director and curator. True, the opening took place without much enthusiasm, since abstractionism in America was then considered a purely European "fad". But the collection continued to grow. And surprisingly, but the main driving force was now not only Hill, but Solomon Guggenheim himself. For him, this became a kind of contribution to the fight against Nazism. Indeed, after Hitler came to power, all avant-garde painting in Germany was proclaimed "degenerate" art. Among the artists of this trend there were many Jews who, as Hitler believed, "... the Lord refused the talent of truly artistic endowment and instead gave them the gift of chatter and deceit." Their works were removed from museums and private collections, destroyed, and the authors themselves were persecuted. Solomon, on the other hand, began buying up their work, sending Hill to Germany on the eve of World War II. With suitcases full of dollars. Guggenheim considered it his duty to save at least what was still possible.

This is how the year 1943 came when the final decision was made about the need to build a large independent museum. And the Guggenheim with Hilla von Rebye goes to meet with Frank Lloyd Wright. By that time, he was no longer young and was a kind of icon of American architecture. During his life, he developed over 1000 projects and built 363 buildings. Starting with the legendary Sullivan, the ideologue of the Chicago School, he was the author of the concept of "organic architecture", played a key role in the architectural movements of the XNUMXth century and influenced three generations of architects around the world.

But when he met Guggenheim, he did not yet know that he would be working on the most important structure of his life. By that time, there were only two types of museum buildings: the Exhibition Pavilion (most often designed in a simple “International style”), or a palace-like building in the Beaux-arts style, like the Metropolitan Museum. We do not know how their first meeting took place (after that they will meet hundreds of times), but we know that the main position was firmly agreed upon: a museum must be built that has no analogues in the world. As Hilla later wrote to Wright: “All achievements must be organized in space, and only you can do this. Create for us a temple of spirituality - a temple of the spirit, a monument!”

In August 1945, Wright built a model of the museum and sent a letter to Solomon: “The model is complete. This is a tremendous beauty. This will save us many thousands of dollars in construction costs, as any questionable points in the plans are immediately cleared up by looking at the model. ” It is said that when Hilla saw him and understood how the collection would be arranged, she told Solomon her legendary phrase: "With this you will become famous throughout the world." But the number of paintings increased, and already in 1947 a townhouse at 1071 Fifth Avenue was converted for the museum. In 1952, it was renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

During all this time, prior to the start of construction in 1956, Wright will make about seven hundred sketches and six separate sets of working drawings in connection with the requirements of the public and the comments of various city services. This became especially noticeable after Solomon Guggenheim passed away in 1949, without waiting for the start of construction. What made them all so indignant? The fact that Wright literally turned upside down the generally accepted understanding of museum architecture and the principles of building an exhibition. His museum was a large volume, divided into proportional parts by light niches.

It was supposed to be painted in a bright color, up to red. Getting through the central entrance to the atrium of the first floor, which is 400 meters long, visitors took the elevator to the upper floor and then, going down the ramp floors, examined the exhibits on display. At the same time, the open volumes of the interior made it possible to simultaneously survey several levels at once. The rotunda itself, consisting of 6 floors, was crowned with a glass dome that provided daylight. The Guggenheim Museum became the first architectural site of our time to reproduce the spiral shape on this scale. In the deep Middle Ages, a similar idea of ​​a large atrium was used only when constructing the Bramante stairs in the Vatican.

The interior walls of the rotunda were tilted outward at 97 degrees. Wright wanted the walls to imitate the tilt of an easel as the best viewing position. He imagined paintings leaning against the wall instead of hanging them. Wright also installed skylights in the galleries to naturally illuminate the artwork.

Photo: Shutterstock

The circular design was inspired more by nature than typical building shapes. Wright's creation was so ahead of its time that many, even experts, it caused active rejection. Some artists believed that the museum should not have such a powerful artistic impact on the viewer that can overshadow the works of art themselves.

The New York Daily Mirror wrote: “This building should be placed in a museum so that people can then see how crazy the 20th century was.” “No, you are completely wrong,” Wright wrote. “I want to make both the building and the paintings one continuous artistic object, in some way a symphony in the art world that has not existed before.” Well, how can one not recall here the words of the great architect of the Old World, Antonio Gaudi: “The corners will disappear, and matter will generously appear in its astral roundness: the sun will penetrate here from all sides and the image of paradise will appear... so the palace will become brighter than light.”

Then Wright had a particularly hard time, because the new management of the foundation actually withdrew from the struggle for the museum. William Allin Storrer, in his book The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, wrote: "Overcoming the limitations of New York City building codes took longer than designing or building." You can read about this in the Commission for the Conservation of Landmarks 1990 report: “Due to the unusual nature of the scheme, when these plans were first received by the municipal authorities in 1952, they had objections to 32 building codes. When the number of objections was reduced to about fifteen, the plans were sent to the Standards and Appeals Board (BSA) for any required deviations. After a long period of revision of the project, BSA approved the plans and in 1956 the Department of Housing issued a permit. "

What have they been thinking about for four years? How to close the project? And yet, in 1956, construction began. But despite this, the people who should have been most concerned about the opening of the museum rallied against it. Immediately, a group of 21 artists sent a joint letter to the Guggenheim Foundation, outlining their dissatisfaction with the project because its spiral shape was “not suitable for the display of painting and sculpture.” Wright responded to them in the New York Times: “I am well enough acquainted with the incubus of habits that surrounds your minds to realize that you all know too little about the nature of the mother art of architecture.”

Construction continued over the next several years, and Wright lived nearby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel while the museum was being built. The museum will open to an enthusiastic public on October 21, 1959, just six months after the death of Frank Lloyd Wright. And in 1992, a new wing will be added to it, which includes additional exhibition space and two floors of office space (this was also provided by Wright).

One more thing. Hilla could not take part either in the struggle for Wright’s spiral or for the purity of the “non-objective” collection. Due to intrigues within the family, especially Solomon's niece Peggy (although she could not imagine anything other than Hilla's familiar address to Solomon - "Guggi"), after Guggenheim's death, the family excluded her from the board of directors. Moreover, the works of many of her protégés, including Bauer, were excluded from the show. Baroness von Rebay was not even invited to the opening of the museum that she actually created. Unfortunately, she never crossed its threshold (just like Guggenheim and Wright, who died before the museum opened). His triumph and transformation into an architectural idol of New York will happen much later. As well as recognition of the merits of the great triumvirate, who managed to create and give the world another of his miracles.

About family and destiny

There was another brother in this famous family - Benjamin, who, unfortunately, was not an “underground king”. He chose a different fate and a different voyage. Completing it with dignity, “in a Guggenheim style.” He was born in 1865 in Philadelphia, and at the age of 17 he was enrolled in Columbia College. However, he dropped out after his second year of study. At his father's insistence, he continued his studies at the Pierce School of Business (now Pierce College), at that time one of the most famous business schools in the country. In 1894 he married Floretta Seligman, daughter of James Seligman, senior partner of the firm of J. & W. Seligman & Co, originally from Franconia (Germany). This was a very wealthy family, and to get an idea of ​​the philosophy of their lifestyle, it is enough to quote James Seligman: “Selling what you have to those who need it is not doing business. Selling what you don’t have to someone who doesn’t need it—that’s real business!”

However, either his family life did not work out, or because of business problems, but more often than not he lived not in their New York house, but in his Parisian apartment. There he had a small company about which very little is known. For example, the fact that she, among other things, supplied accessories for the elevators of the Eiffel Tower. In 1912, returning to New York, he found himself on the Titanic, accompanied by his mistress (French singer Leontine Obart), on that very unfortunate night of April 14.

After a collision with an iceberg, he put her with the maid in a lifeboat and assured that they would see each other soon, since this was only a ship repair. He helped a little more with the loading of the women and realizing that the situation was much more serious and he would not be able to escape, he returned with the valet to the cabin. There, they changed into tuxedos and then sat at a table in the central hall, where they sipped whiskey slowly, watching the disaster. When someone suggested that they try to escape, Guggenheim replied: "We are dressed according to our position and are ready to die like gentlemen." At the same time, he conveyed a message to the steward, who miraculously managed to escape: "If something happens to me, tell my wife in New York that I did everything in my power to do my duty." He has three daughters left. The middle of them - Margarita (Meggie, later "Peggy") was 14 years old.

It is believed that she grew up a lonely, withdrawn and disliked girl. The father was almost always on business trips, and the mother was known as a secular lioness and rarely communicated with her children and husband. She was brought up by nannies, governesses and home teachers. However, later in her interviews, she will say that she adored her parents (of course, a hero father!) And that she retained pleasant memories of her childhood.

The situation changed when she turned 21 and was able to dispose of her inheritance. It was quite a lot of money: from my father, mother and grandfather, a banker. Nevertheless, all her life she considered herself almost a beggar, since she would compare her income only with the money of the Guggenheim brothers. With the same Solomon whom I wildly envied.

Soon she will go to Paris, and get into those "Roaring Twenties". This was not Paris at all, with pogroms, arson, violence in the "colored suburbs", performances of "yellow vests" and coronavirus quarantines. Paris in the 1920s was the center of talented people of art: writers, musicians, artists. Before the rich heiress, of course, the doors of secular salons, where the elite gathered, were wide open. She had many fans from wealthy families, but her choice fell on Laurence Weil - a half-American, half-French, half-writer and half-artist whom she knew from New York. This he will introduce her to the French elite, with all the "iconic" places of the capital and its suburbs.

The marriage lasted 7 years and gave her two children - Sinbad and Peggin. Peggy, of course, wanted to become a famous artist or actress, but she understands that she has no talent. Therefore he is looking for another way. It was during this period that she met the American artist Marcel Duchamp, about whom she would retain her best memories: “At that time, I had absolutely no understanding of art. Marcel tried to enlighten me. I don't know what I would do without him. To begin with, he explained to me the difference between abstract art and surrealism. Then he introduced me to artists. Everyone adored him and I received a warm welcome everywhere. He drew up an exhibition plan for me and gave me a lot of advice. It was he who opened the doors to the world of modernism for me.” And the place of Lawrence in her life will be taken by the British John Holmes. She follows him to London, but he drinks too much and eventually dies during a simple operation from anesthesia, which was superimposed on a hefty dose of alcohol in his blood. She is having a hard time with his departure. But she is saved by art, which, thanks to John, she has now become well versed in.

A friend invites her to create an art gallery. Peggy puts all her pain and passion into this venture. She remembers Marcel's advice: to acquire works of not recognized, but beginning artists. So he begins to buy paintings by abstractionists, surrealists, cubists. She listens to the advice of friends, but her own instinct does not let her down. It soon turns out that Peggy has a rare talent for intuition, which helps her when choosing promising jobs. Thus, the Guggenheim collection begins to replenish with paintings by artists who are destined for recognition in the future. Naturally, paintings purchased for a pittance gradually begin to rise in value, that is, they multiply the fortune of Peggy Guggenheim.

On the other hand, some of the artists owed their recognition to this rich American woman, who was simultaneously engaged in the promotion of their work. Indeed, in return, she organizes their exhibitions, finds wealthy clients who are ready to buy their paintings. It used to be that she was the only connoisseur of the paintings she exhibited, but later they would be worth millions. In 1938 she opens her own gallery in London, where Jean Cocteau, Yves Tanguy, Wassily Kandinsky are exhibited. She meets art historian Herbert Read and discusses with him plans to create an art museum in London. In August 1939, Peggy travels to Paris to discuss the financing of the first exhibition there in banks. The luggage contains an indicative list of paintings and artists that Reed prepared for her for this purpose.

Stop. This is where the story begins, for the sake of which we began our story about Peggy. She arrives in Paris and learns that World War II has broken out. And this seemingly absurd freak ... but this, however, is no longer important. She feels that the war has turned everything upside down, everything is lost, and there will be no return to England. The museum needs to be completed here and now. And she begins to behave like an experienced business woman, not just with a sense of responsibility, but with an amazing flair. He rents a room for a museum in Paris and starts buying paintings from all the artists who were in the list given to her. I even gave myself a task: to buy one painting a day. However, a few days before the Germans arrived in Paris, Peggy was forced to change plans again.

She goes to the Louvre with a request to accept her collection during the Nazi presence. But the professors refuse her. They do not find that these paintings are of any value, and are advised to send them to America as "household belongings". So Peggy, with her unconditional flair, was ahead of her time. After all, many of the works in her collection will soon be called “priceless”. Then she rushes to Portugal, to Estoril, to get from there to America. But getting tickets for a ship to America here was incredible. Open the novel by E. Remarque "A Night in Lisbon", and you will understand everything about the problems that confronted Patty.

And then, in 1941, she organized a plane to New York and loaded it not only with her collection, but also with a whole group of writers and artists fleeing Nazism. Including the famous sculptor and artist Mark Ernst, who would become her second husband, and Lawrence Weil, her first husband, with whom she remained on friendly terms. In 1942, she and Ernst would open the Art of This Century gallery in New York. The works she brought from the Old World will be shown there. Soon the gallery will turn into “an American outpost of the European avant-garde”, becoming a place of mutual enrichment of artists from two continents - the center of the avant-garde. New authors are also exhibited here, starting with Pollock, whom she actually opened to the public. In just four and a half years of the gallery’s existence, 53 exhibitions were held, presenting works by 103 authors.

In 1948, thanks to the occasion, she takes part in the Venice Biennale. On the one hand, with her collection, she saves the situation, representing the United States there, which could not exhibit paintings on time. On the other hand, Greece unexpectedly abandoned its participation in the biennale due to the outbreak of civil war, and its pavilion was vacant.

Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Photo: Shutterstock

After the exhibition, she was faced with an acute question: how to continue to live? Return to America or stay in Europe? But then, as often happened with the Guggenheims, the opportunity suddenly arises to buy the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal, which will soon become her home - her real and last. His story is extremely simple.

In 1749, the Veniers, a noble Venetian family, commissioned the architect Lorenzo Boschetti to design a five-story palazzo located on the Grand Canal. But various circumstances prevented construction, and the one-story palazzo remained unfinished. The building changed hands several times before Peggy Guggenheim made it her permanent residence, and soon an art museum.

She opened his visit to the public in 1951, inviting visitors to see her collection free of charge (3 times a week). Although Peggy has always felt like a poor relative, here she suddenly became the most famous member of the Guggenheim family. In Venice, she lived in her own palace, owned a gondola and took a daily walk along the canals, accompanied by an entourage, dressed in turquoise. This is how she was remembered in the fabulous city.

She herself looked extravagant - her clothes were always original. Peggy loved to wear African-style dresses and accessories: lots of feathers, unusual headdresses, massive necklaces. She was certainly one of the most prominent women of her time, and in 2015, director Lisa Immordino Vreeland made an interesting film about her. The film talked about her life, amazing intuition, and, of course, about the men she “collected” just like the paintings. “During my life, I have collected two collections,” she says from the screen, “paintings and men. Both started with relatively modest specimens and crowned them with masterpieces..."

On December 23, 1979, she died in the Camposampiero hospital, near Padua. Peggy's ashes are buried in the garden of the Palazzo Venier, next to her 14 dogs. After death, the building was restored and transferred to the management of the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation as a Venetian museum. The collection includes 326 works by such masters as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Paul Klee, Salvador Dali and other Masters of the XNUMXth century. And although her grandchildren tried to get some kind of rights to run the museum through the courts, their attempts failed. This is how the Guggenheim Foundation had its first branch, named Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

In 1988, Thomas Krenz, one of the most professional museum managers in the world, became the head of the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, who during his 20 years of work managed to create a worldwide museum network and implement such a perfect organizational scheme that the British Tate and the Louvre in Paris adopted it.

His first step in organizing branches and divisions of the museum was the creation in New York Guggenheim Museum Soho, which opened on the corner of Broadway and Prince Street in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. This was in 1992, and it remains in the memory thanks to such wonderful exhibitions as “Marc Chagall and the Jewish Theater”, “Paul Klee at the Guggenheim Museum”, “Robert Rauschenberg - Retrospective” and “Andy Warhol - The Last Supper”, which served additions to the permanent exhibition of the museum. However, in 2002, the museum ceased to exist, unable to reduce operating costs with its inflated areas. (With a planned attendance of 250 thousand visitors per year, only the level of 125-200 thousand was achieved).

The next step was taken in Bilbao (Spain). The Basque Country, where the construction was planned, although it is located far from the main tourist routes, its Guernica, immortalized by Pablo Picasso, Pamplona with the legendary bullfight glorified by Hemingway, the capital Vitoria and the delightful cinematic San Sebastian cannot leave anyone indifferent.

The situation with Bilbao was quite different. The industrial city at the mouth of the Nervion River had no special attractions. In the 1936th century, it suffered in the Napoleonic wars, and in XNUMX it was brutally bombed by the Francoists. True, in the twentieth century it was put in order, but the city needed outstanding sights for which people would be drawn here.

In the late 1980s, amid a decline in production, the problem of revitalizing the city's economy by attracting tourists became especially acute, and local authorities turned to the Guggenheim Foundation to find a solution. They, in turn, were looking for a suitable city for the development of a museum fund in Europe. Thomas Krentz, according to tradition, again invites the best architect of the country - Frank Gehry (actually Ephraim Goldberg, from a family of Jewish emigrants from Poland). Many of you are familiar with his works at the Dancing House in Prague, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, etc.

He always said to his customers: "I don't understand why people hire an architect and then tell him what to do." Krenz did not specify anything, he simply repeated what Hilla von Rebay had once said to Wright: "You must build a museum that has no analogues in the world." And they came to the municipality of Bilbau, told about their plans, and heard that the city is ready to take all costs on itself. For three and a half years, the museum was erected and in 1997 put into operation under the name Guggenheim Museum Bilbau.

Photo: Shutterstock

The design of the museum and its construction were fully consistent with the style of Frank Gehry. The museum is said to not contain a single flat surface in its entire structure. A jumble of volumes and lines, shining curved surfaces of titanium, sharp protrusions, twisting roofs and walls, window openings appearing in unexpected places - do not allow you to concentrate on any detail (as when examining the facade of some baroque building), but create a general impression of someone striving to the harbor of a ship, or a mysterious biblical fish, covered (like scales) with panels that shimmer in the light.

In the design of the building, computer modeling of structures was used, which made it possible to produce elements of such outlines that would have been impossible to accomplish several decades ago. Architect Frank Gehry did not deviate from his favorite style of deconstructivism, in which the building, violating all the academic rules of construction (he knows perfectly well that there are no square tomatoes, rectangular bananas or triangular pears in nature), creates an ultra-modern volumetric and wavy silhouette, as if repeating nature and the curves of the nearby hills and river.

ВThe interior space of the museum is also ambiguous: it consists of ten classic rectangular halls and nine rooms with unexpected shapes of walls, floors and ceilings. Interior deconstructivism is successfully used for exhibitions of contemporary art - most of the museum’s exhibitions are sculptural video installations, and the main and only permanent exhibition of the museum is the composition “Matter of Time” by the American sculptor Richard Serra, which occupies the largest exhibition hall. At the entrance, guests are greeted by a huge Puppy puppy made of flowers, as if straight from the city’s coat of arms. And also Spider Maman, huge tulips and much more. But the best thing to do is open the pages of Dan Brown’s new novel “Origin” and, before coming here, read an informative and fascinating story about the adventures of his heroes within the walls of this museum.

This is how the old industrial zone of the city was transformed. But the economic significance of the new museum exceeded all expectations. In the first three years of its work, it attracted 4 million tourists to the city, which brought him about 500 million euros. Thus, the museum paid off in three years of operation and continues to bring a steady income to the city treasury.

Around the same time, in 1997, a branch of the museum was opened in Berlin, called - German Guggenheim... In fact, it was a small space on the ground floor of the Deutsche Bank branch on Unter den Linden Boulevard in Berlin, which hosted thematic art exhibitions 4 times a year. This became possible because this particular bank is the owner of the largest corporate collection of works by artists of the early 2013th century. In addition, the German side was supposed to organize an exhibition of works by progressive young German artists once a year in order to identify the best works to replenish the collection of the Guggenheim Museum. However, by XNUMX, this commonwealth ceased to be interesting for both sides.

In 2001, Thomas Krenz makes another attempt to cooperate with foreign museums. This time with the Russian Hermitage. The general exhibition was held under the title “Masterpieces and Collectors.” The Hermitage was represented by paintings from the Shchukin-Morozov collection of post-impressionists, and the Guggenheim by early modernists from its holdings. Each side exhibited 25 paintings. They were presented on the ground floor of the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Why here?

Because Krentz knew what he was doing. 60 million tourists come here every year. It was one of the most vibrant crossroads in America, where popular culture was developed only on an industrial level. But “high” culture bypassed the city. Now she has appeared here. “By opening museums in Las Vegas, we are bringing art to where it will have an audience,” said Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Chairman Thomas Krentz at the museum's opening. Hermitage-Guggenheim Museum will successfully operate here until its closure in 2008.

At the same hotel, at the same time, another exhibition was organized under the general name Guggenheim Museum Las Vegas. Although in fact it was an exhibition of a completely different direction. “The Art of the Motorcycle” was a famous exhibition dedicated to the development of two-wheeled motorized transport. It was first shown in New York in 1993 and stopped here for three years as part of a worldwide tour. The already well-known architect Frank Gehry was invited to design the exhibition.

But we still have the most important meeting with him. The fact is that the President of the UAE and Emir of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, decided to turn his city into the cultural capital of the country (after all, competition with Dubai is becoming increasingly intense). For this purpose, the artificial island of Saadiyat was built near the city, where, in addition to golf courses, prestigious hotels and villas, part of the territory was allocated for concerts and exhibition halls, modern galleries, museums and other cultural objects. This complex would include the UAE National Museum, a center for futuristic performing arts, the Maritime Museum, as well as branches and representative offices of the Louvre and the Solomon Guggenheim Museum. At the same time, the Guggenheim should become the first serious museum of contemporary art in the Arab world, with a volume 12 times larger than the dimensions of the museum in New York. What architect could cope with such a task, and at the same time solve it even better and more interesting than in Bilbau? Only Frank Gehry himself. In 2009 he turned 80 years old. Nevertheless, he enthusiastically took on this project - "Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum".

According to his idea, the building should resemble Cubist paintings with its futuristic appearance. This is achieved by using elements from decaying volumes and fractured surfaces. Seen from the outside, giant cone shapes appear to decorate incredibly large parallelepipeds, using fragments of national wind towers and Bedouin tents. This unique approach made it possible to combine two completely different cultures, harmoniously combining them together.

The walls of the museum will be built from a variety of stones, with shades that make it possible to highlight different premises. In total, there are four levels of central galleries, and two more stand apart on the sides, and natural light is used to illuminate them. Frank Gehry, inspired by the local Arab architecture of the famous wind towers, says: "The conical shapes are used as the entrance to the museum and then seem to dissolve into the desert landscape ... This will be a place for many, many generations." He knows what he's talking about. Geniuses can foresee a lot.

Almost a century ago, when he was only taking his first steps, a young graphic artist and artist, an apologist for the Russian avant-garde, Alexander Radchenko, dreamed of some infinitely distant time when “no canvases or paints would be needed, and future creativity <...> to embed their creations right into the walls, which without paints, brushes, canvases will burn with extraordinary, yet unknown colors. " Didn't modern designers actually directly embody his dream by placing huge TV screens almost on the entire surface of the wall and making it possible to show on them the image of any "Morning in a Pine Forest", providing it with rustling leaves, the roll of birds and even the smell of forest flowers. And how could his predecessor Frank Wright, arranging a glass dome over the rotunda of his museum, suggest that Maurizio Cattelan would want to hang 128 sculpture installations to it: horses, cows, old carts, doves on ship masts, a ruddy old woman sitting in a refrigerator, a boy on a bicycle, and even Picasso in his beloved vest with bulging piercing black eyes.

And he himself could not have admitted that the huge halls up to 130 m long in Bilbao provided by him could ever be filled with a single installation. But she was found, like 99 wolves, blindly rushing and breaking to death on a glass wall in their path.

Or that the effect of the Arabian wind towers, ornamental in Adu Dhabi, can be excellently used to air conditioning a huge ultra-modern museum complex.

And this becomes another of the achievements of the Guggenheim museums: their architecture not only does not become obsolete, but every year it becomes more and more relevant and in demand.

As von Rebye once said to Solomon Hill prophetically: "With this you will become famous all over the world." And so it happened, since the very name Guggenheim on all continents has now become a kind of brand and symbol of contemporary art, and museum buildings have turned into extraordinary "icons" of XNUMXth century architecture.

So, after finishing your visit to this wonderful New York museum, stop for a moment outside to take a photo of him goodbye. But be sure to find such a perspective so that the name of the founder of the museum, put on the facade of the building, gets into the lens: "Solomon Guggenheim". Now you already know a lot about him and his museum. The visit is over, but life goes on. And God bless you with new meetings and discoveries. After all, there is still somewhere Venice, Bilbao and even distant Abu Dhabi. The Guggenheim museums await you.

This article by ForumDaily author, journalist Leonid Raevsky, is part of the New York Walking Tour cycle.

Read his other materials on ForumDaily

From the series "Walks in New York":

From the series "Cities and People":

From the series "History of the American Symbol":

Read also on ForumDaily:

Metronome: art installation in New York with extraordinary clock

Monument to Balto: how the legendary dog ​​was immortalized in New York

Walk of Fame for Jewish actors: on Jewish theaters in Manhattan and the tragic fate of the restaurateur Abe Lebevol

The Pulitzer Fountain at Grand Army Square in New York: the amazing fate of the founder of the famous Pulitzer Prize

Macy's, the extraordinary love and tragedy of 'Titanic': on the Isidore and Ida Strauss Memorial

loudspeakers Guggenheim Museum sightseeings of USA
Subscribe to ForumDaily on Google News

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis. 



 
1076 requests in 1,034 seconds.