Description
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is the modern art museum in Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice. It gathers what the American collector bought in the twentieth century: Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, Pollock, in a house that has remained a house.
Peggy, niece of the magnate Solomon Guggenheim, moved among artists. She married one of them, Max Ernst. Once a week, until her death in 1979, she opened almost the whole house free of charge to anyone who wanted to see the collection.
The museum belongs to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation of New York and is one of the foremost in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the twentieth century. It opened to the public in 1951, when Peggy was still living in the palace.
Among the works to look for are The Empire of Light by René Magritte (1954), Alchemy by Jackson Pollock (1947) and On the Beach by Picasso (1937).
Other masterpieces are The Birth of Liquid Desires by Dalí, Matter by Boccioni and Rain by Chagall, alongside works by Kandinsky, Duchamp and Brâncuși, with a sculpture from the Bird in Space series.
The route runs through Cubism, Futurism, metaphysical painting, European abstraction, Surrealism and American Abstract Expressionism. You meet Picasso (The Poet), Léger, Mondrian, Miró, Giacometti, Klee and Pollock (The Moon Woman), as well as Rothko, Calder and Moore.
Other important works are The Robing of the Bride by Max Ernst, Peggy's ex-husband, the Box in a Valise by Marcel Duchamp, from 1941, and Upward by Kandinsky, from 1929. In a building acquired in 2016, new rooms, a café and a small education center have been created.
Since 1997 the museum has also displayed, on long-term loan, twenty-six paintings from the collection of Gianni Mattioli, with masterpieces of Italian Futurism by Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, Balla and Severini; there are also a few works by the early Morandi and a portrait by Modigliani.
Italian abstraction has a place of its own, with Fontana, Vedova, Afro, Burri and Accardi. In 2012 the couple Hannelore and Rudolph Schulhof donated 83 contemporary works to the institution, from Rothko to Warhol.
At the entrance, on the Grand Canal, is its most famous work: the 1948 bronze Angel of the City by Marino Marini.
In the garden Peggy herself rests, in an urn in a corner, together with her many dogs.
In the museum's library, the exhibition catalogs often carry dedications from Peggy's artist friends.
Don't miss
• The Empire of Light.
• Alchemy.
• The Angel of the City.
• The garden with Peggy's tomb.
Did you know?
• With about 400,000 visitors a year it is the second most visited museum in Venice after the Doge's Palace.
• In the library there is a handmade book, "The child with the dust blanket", of which no other copies exist in any library.
Peggy, niece of the magnate Solomon Guggenheim, moved among artists. She married one of them, Max Ernst. Once a week, until her death in 1979, she opened almost the whole house free of charge to anyone who wanted to see the collection.
The museum belongs to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation of New York and is one of the foremost in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the twentieth century. It opened to the public in 1951, when Peggy was still living in the palace.
Among the works to look for are The Empire of Light by René Magritte (1954), Alchemy by Jackson Pollock (1947) and On the Beach by Picasso (1937).
Other masterpieces are The Birth of Liquid Desires by Dalí, Matter by Boccioni and Rain by Chagall, alongside works by Kandinsky, Duchamp and Brâncuși, with a sculpture from the Bird in Space series.
The route runs through Cubism, Futurism, metaphysical painting, European abstraction, Surrealism and American Abstract Expressionism. You meet Picasso (The Poet), Léger, Mondrian, Miró, Giacometti, Klee and Pollock (The Moon Woman), as well as Rothko, Calder and Moore.
Other important works are The Robing of the Bride by Max Ernst, Peggy's ex-husband, the Box in a Valise by Marcel Duchamp, from 1941, and Upward by Kandinsky, from 1929. In a building acquired in 2016, new rooms, a café and a small education center have been created.
Since 1997 the museum has also displayed, on long-term loan, twenty-six paintings from the collection of Gianni Mattioli, with masterpieces of Italian Futurism by Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, Balla and Severini; there are also a few works by the early Morandi and a portrait by Modigliani.
Italian abstraction has a place of its own, with Fontana, Vedova, Afro, Burri and Accardi. In 2012 the couple Hannelore and Rudolph Schulhof donated 83 contemporary works to the institution, from Rothko to Warhol.
At the entrance, on the Grand Canal, is its most famous work: the 1948 bronze Angel of the City by Marino Marini.
In the garden Peggy herself rests, in an urn in a corner, together with her many dogs.
In the museum's library, the exhibition catalogs often carry dedications from Peggy's artist friends.
Don't miss
• The Empire of Light.
• Alchemy.
• The Angel of the City.
• The garden with Peggy's tomb.
Did you know?
• With about 400,000 visitors a year it is the second most visited museum in Venice after the Doge's Palace.
• In the library there is a handmade book, "The child with the dust blanket", of which no other copies exist in any library.