One of twentieth-century America’s most influential patrons of the arts, Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979) brought to wide public attention the work of such modern masters as Jackson Pollock and Man Ray. In her time, there was no stronger advocate for the groundbreaking and the avant-garde. Her midtown gallery was the acknowledged center of the postwar New York art scene, and her museum on the Grand Canal in Venice remains one of the world’s great collections of modern art. Yet as renowned as she was for the art and artists she so tirelessly championed, Guggenheim was equally famous for her unconventional personal life, and for her ironic, playful desire to shock. Acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose offers a singular reading of Guggenheim’s life that will enthrall enthusiasts of twentieth-century art, as well as anyone interested in American and European culture and the interrelationships between them. The lively and insightful narrative follows Guggenheim through virtually every aspect of her extraordinary life, from her unique collecting habits and paradigm-changing discoveries, to her celebrity friendships, failed marriages, and scandalous affairs, and Prose delivers a colorful portrait of a defiantly uncompromising woman who maintained a powerful upper hand in a male-dominated world. Prose also explores the ways in which Guggenheim’s image was filtered through the lens of insidious antisemitism.

Peggy Guggenheim -- millionairess, legendary lover, sadomasochist, appalling parent, selective miser -- was one of the greatest and most notorious art patrons of the twentieth century. After her father, Benjamin Guggenheim, went down with the Titanic, the young heiress came into a small fortune and left for Europe. She married the writer Laurence Vail and joined the American expatriate bohemian set. Though her many lovers included such lions of art and literature as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst (whom she later married), Yves Tanguy, and Roland Penrose, real love always seemed to elude her. In the late 1930s, Peggy set up one of the first galleries of modern art in London, quickly acquiring a magnificent selection of works, buying great numbers of paintings from artists fleeing to America after the Nazi invasion of France. Escaping from Vichy, she moved back to New York, where she was a vital part of the new American abstract expressionist movement. Meticulously researched, filled with colorful incident, and boasting a distinguished cast, Anton Gill's biography reveals the inner drives of a remarkable woman and indefatigable patron of the arts.

Essay by Philip Rylands.

Born into a wealthy New York family in 1898, Marguerite 'Peggy' Guggenheim was one of the greatest art collectors of the 20th century. Using her inheritance to open her first art gallery, Peggy's love of art lead her to eventually settle in Venice, where she relaunched her life after becoming the star of the 1948 Venice Art Biennale. For her, a life without the inspiration of her artist and writer friends would have been unthinkable. In Encounters with Peggy Guggenheim, renowned photographer Stefan Moses reveals his collection of photographs of Peggy, taken between 1969 and 1974, many of which have never been seen before. Striking, eccentric and dramatic, Moses photographed Peggy in her favorite places around Venice, as well as in her private palazzo at Canal Grande. See Peggy as she glides on her gondola with her Lhasa apso dogs, wearing her iconic butterfly glasses made by Edward Melcarth -- the quickness and talent of Moses captures the character of this true eccentric. An inspiration for art-, photography- and fashion-lovers alike, Encounters with Peggy Guggenheim is a behind-the-scenes look at of one of the world's most eccentric and inspirational women.

A visual biography of the great patron and collector This book offers a thorough visual biography of the life of Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) as collector, through a selection of works from the world-renowned collection she established primarily between 1938 and 1946, and to which she would continue to add for the rest of her life. The selections from her collection, emphasizing lesser-known works, are accompanied by a series of previously unpublished photographs from her life during periods spent living in London, Paris and her native New York, as well as Venice, where she settled with her collection in 1949 and spent her remaining 30 years. Each period of Guggenheim's life is examined through contributions from 13 international scholars and researchers, which, along with the photographs, provide new insights into her colorful and impressive career building one of the world's most significant and widely visited personal art collections.

Dearborn's unprecedented access to Guggenheim's family, friends, and papers contributes rich insight to her traumatic childhood in New York, her self-education in the ways of art and artists, her battles with other art-collecting Guggenheims, and her legendary sexual appetites.

A patron of art since the 1930s, Peggy Guggenheim, in a candid self-portrait, provides an insider's view of the early days of modern art, with revealing accounts of her eccentric wealthy family, her personal and professional relationships, and often surprising portrayals of the artists themselves Peggy Guggenheim was born into affluence and a lavish lifestyle. Bored with her seemingly "pedestrian" life in New York, she headed for Europe in 1921, where she woudl sow the seeds for a future as one of modern art's most important and influential figures. In the midst of Europe's avant-garde circles, she reveled in her love affairs with prominent artists and also became a serious collector. Her Guggenheim Jeune gallery in London brought figures such as Brancusi, Cocteau, Kandinsky, and Arp to the forefront of the art scene. Later, her New York gallery would launch the careers of Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell, among others. In her own inimitable and bawdy style, Peggy Guggenheim gives us an insider's glimpse into the modern art world with intimate, often surprising portrayals of its most significant players. Candid, clever, and always entertaining, here is a memoir that captures a valuable chapter in the history of modern art, as well as the spirit of one of its greatest advocates.