27 Facts About Peggy Guggenheim

Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite.

Peggy Guggenheim exhibited this collection as she built it; in 1949, 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 in Venice, Italy, and is one of the most visited attractions in Venice.

Peggy Guggenheim's mother, Florette Seligman, was a member of the Seligman family.

Peggy Guggenheim had a sister, Barbara Hazel Guggenheim, who became a painter and art collector.

Peggy Guggenheim first worked as a clerk in an avant-garde bookstore, the Sunwise Turn, in mid-town Manhattan, where she became enamored of the members of the bohemian artistic community.

Peggy Guggenheim became close friends with writer Natalie Barney and artist Romaine Brooks and was a regular at Barney's salon.

Peggy Guggenheim met Djuna Barnes during this time, and in time became her friend and patron.

Barnes wrote her best-known novel, Nightwood, while staying at the Devon country house, Hayford Hall, that Peggy Guggenheim had rented for two summers.

Peggy Guggenheim urged Emma Goldman to write her autobiography and helped to secure funds for her to live in Saint-Tropez, France, while writing her two volume Living My Life.

Peggy Guggenheim wrote her own autobiography entitled Out of This Century, later revised and re-published as Confessions of an Art Addict which was released in 1946 and is published with Harper Collins.

In January 1938, Peggy Guggenheim opened a gallery for modern art in London featuring Jean Cocteau drawings in its first show, and began to collect works of art.

Peggy Guggenheim often purchased at least one object from each of her exhibitions at the gallery.

Peggy Guggenheim taught her about contemporary art and styles, and he conceived several of the exhibitions held at Guggenheim Jeune.

Peggy Guggenheim held group exhibitions of sculpture and collage, with the participation of the now-classic moderns Antoine Pevsner, Henry Moore, Henri Laurens, Alexander Calder, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Constantin Brancusi, John Ferren, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Kurt Schwitters.

Peggy Guggenheim greatly admired the work of John Tunnard and is credited with his discovery in mainstream international modernism.

Peggy Guggenheim closed Peggy Guggenheim Jeune with a farewell party on 22 June 1939, at which colour portrait photographs by Gisele Freund were projected on the walls.

Peggy Guggenheim started making plans for a Museum of Modern Art in London together with the English art historian and art critic Herbert Read.

Peggy Guggenheim set aside $40,000 for the museum's running costs.

Peggy Guggenheim had assembled her collection in only seven years.

Peggy Guggenheim's collection became one of the few European collections of modern art to promote a significant number of works by Americans.

Peggy Guggenheim loaned out her collection to museums in Europe and in 1969 to the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York City, which was named after her uncle.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is one of the most important museums in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the 20th century.

Peggy Guggenheim lived in Venice until her death in Camposampiero near Padua, Italy, after a stroke.

Peggy Guggenheim's ashes are interred in the garden of her home, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, next to her dogs.

Peggy Guggenheim claimed to have had affairs with numerous artists and writers, and in return many artists and others have claimed affairs with her.

Peggy Guggenheim married her second husband, painter Max Ernst, in 1941 and divorced him in 1946.