In her captivating memoir, Out of This Century: The Informal Memoirs of Peggy Guggenheim, the renowned art collector and socialite takes readers on a fascinating journey through her extraordinary life. From her bohemian upbringing to her pivotal role in shaping the modern art world, Guggenheim's story is one of passion, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to the avant-garde. This intimate and candid account offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a visionary who left an indelible mark on the cultural landscape of the 20th century.

With a foreword by Gore Vidal, this frank and engaging book details Peggy Guggenheim's private and professional life, where she mixed with Picasso, Pollock, Ernst, Dali and many others.

A candid, intimate self-portrait by the legendary collector, patron of the arts, and globe-trotting socialite. In this colorful memoir, Peggy Guggenheim 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. Guggenheim was born into affluence and a lavish lifestyle. But, bored with her life in New York, she headed for Europe in 1921, where she would 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 a behind-the-scenes 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. “It is clear Miss Guggenheim is that mellow combination of a shrewd collector and a true art lover, and her book is an interesting record of the art movement of the ’20s and ’30s.” —Publishers Weekly

Mrs Guggenheim, how many husbands have you had? Do you mean my own, or other people's? Peggy Guggenheim was an American millionairess art collector and legendary lover, whose father died on the Titanic returning from installing the lift machinery in the Eiffel Tower. She lived in Paris in the 1930s and got to know all the major artists - especially the Surrealists. (Later she bullied Max Ernst into marrying her, but was snubbed by Picasso.) When the Second World War broke out, she bought great numbers of paintings from artists fleeing to America; as a Jew she escaped from Vichy, France and set up in New York, where in the 1940s and 1950s she befriended and encouraged the New York School (Jackson Pollock, Rothko, and others)

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.