Alberto Giacometti, The Nose (Le Nez), 1947, Bronze, wire, rope and steel, 81 x 97.5 x 39.4 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, © Alberto Giacometti, BY SIAE 2007. |
Peggy Guggenheim's Progress through the then-New World of Surrealism |
Victor Brauner, Untitled, 1941, Gouache on paper, three works in one mat, 12 x 10.4 cm; 14.2 x 10.7 cm 12.8 x 8.2 cm, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, © Victor Brauner, BY SIAE 2007.
Marc Chagall, Green Violinist (Violiniste), 1923-1924. Oil on canvas, 78 x 42-3/4 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, Gift, Solomon R. Guggenheim. 37.446. Marc Chagall © 2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.
Man Ray, Peggy Guggenheim, 1924. |
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Arca Thanks to new studies and developments over the years, Peggy Guggenheim has taken on an ever more important and complex profile, enriching her biography and appreciation of role she had in the world of 20th century figurative art. She had an extraordinary capacity to attract and surround herself with members of the art and avant-garde worlds. Guggenheim also always made very particular choices, rarely following the taste or conventions of the time. One could say that the young heiress sought to understand new artistic styles to the fullest, styles destined to change if not transform the idea of creating art. It is no coincidence that on her first trip to Paris she did not seek out "fashionable" portrait artists. She chose the revolutionary Man Ray, thus charting a course through the innovation and imagery of a new generation of artists. This was a new world, one that overturned the aesthetic conventions of Art Deco, of late, now decorative cubism, of the whole Paris School. It was a world made up and lived in by a young, irreverent, brilliant group seeking to create a new intellectual bohème. They were given over to creative dreams, to the analysis of images, to the breaking of imagery's every boundary. New talent and young experimenters flocked to Paris from the world over. The Piemonte Region and the City of Vercelli, in cooperation with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, opens in its new Arca exhibition space with Peggy Guggenheim and Surrealist Imagery, an exhibition that includes over 50 masterpieces from the Venice and New York collections of the Guggenheim Foundation, gathered together for the first time to create this exhibition. Overseen by Luca Massimo Barbero, associate curator of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the show is but the first step in a triennial project aiming to pay tribute to one of the most important figures in the 20th century art world. Peggy Guggenheim and Surrealist Imagery retraces her steps as a passionate and energetic patron of the arts, underscoring how her journey ran parallel to that of surrealist imagery — imagery that is present not only in the work of the movement's celebrated protagonists, but also as an undercurrent throughout the history of the avant-garde in the first half of the last century. The show debuts as an "event within an event," alongside the inauguration of Arca as a state of the art exhibition space, designed by Ferdinando Fagnola. The project aims to reclaim the medieval church of San Marco, an important historical landmark of the city and which has undergone multiple transformations over the centuries. It has served a myriad of purposes, from wood–store to riding stables, until becoming the main covered market at the end of the 1800s. The Arca structure creates an extraordinary exhibition space within the church nave while simultaneously allowing restoration to be carried out on the structure's important frescoes and architectural features. This is at once a project to restore one of the symbols of the city's artistic patrimony, while promoting the appreciation of art history and the arts. Thanks to her wedding in 1922 to the artist and poet Laurence Vail, Peggy met many surrealist artists in Paris, including André Breton, known as the "Pope of Surrealism" (also the first to catalogue and study her collection), Yves Tanguy, and Fernand Léger, as well as Alberto Giacometti and the other protagonists of the avant-garde. She also had the extraordinary intuition to ally herself intellectually with some of the most radical artists of her time, who helped her form her aesthetic sense. She frequented Marchel Duchamp who was her counsellor and mentor, Jan Arp who brought Dada to Surrealism and Jean Cocteau whose works constituted the inaugural show for Guggenheim Jeune in 1938. In the winter of 1937, Peggy finds Paris ready to celebrate Surrealism and its protagonists in its avant-garde centres. This is the year of the World's Fair, where Picasso showed his Guernica. Following Marcel Duchamp's advice, Peggy spent some days with him in the city before going to London to open her gallery. Duchamp invited her on a behind the scenes tour of the International Surrealist Fair which he was setting up; Peggy was immediately taken by the theorists, artists, and philosophers adhering to Surrealism. She identified with their nonconformist spirit and their fantastic imagery. The term "surrealism" was coined in 1917 by the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire. In 1924 it was used by André Breton to describe a politically and philosophically radical movement that sought to alter the perception of the world through the thoughts and feelings often repressed by "decent society," such as the unconscious, the absurd, dreams, and lust. Peggy Guggenheim witnessed all the phases of this movement undergoing constant transformation: from its birth in continental Europe, to its spread across the channel to England, and finally the powerful impact it had in America. Close personal and professional ties to Surrealist artists and a dynamic personality made Peggy a fulcrum of intellectual salons both in Europe and America; her artistic interest in the current and its affinity to her rebellious personality drove her to document the different avant-garde styles in her collection, including works by artists who precede that which is defined as "Surrealist imagery." From the "founding fathers" such as de Chirico, Chagall, and Picasso, to the movement's protagonists, Ernst, Dalí, Magritte, Miró, Giacometti, Man Ray, Carrington, Fini, and Delvaux, this exhibition highlights a new way of conceiving images, a new way of painting. The Vercelli show evokes this deeply rooted taste for the surrealists' creative imagery, by juxtaposing works from the collection Peggy created during those seminal years, and masterpieces from her uncle Solomon R. Guggenheim's museum in New York, some of which have never before been displayed in Italy. In the Arca of the San Marco Church, one is thus invited to embark upon a journey through a unique artistic landscape.
Victor Brauner, The Surrealist (Le surrealiste), January 1947. Oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 17 3/4 inches (60 x 45 cm). The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 76.2553.111. © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. |
Joan Miró, Painting (Peinture), 1953, Oil on canvas, 194.94 x 375.92 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, © Joan Miró, BY SIAE 2007. |
