On Peggy Guggenheim’s Collection (and sunglasses…)

Earlier on today I started a Venice thread that will continue in this post and hopefully also in the next few days with further little posts if I have enough time to put some order in my mind and notes. 

If you are a modern art lover and happen to be around Venice you should definitely visit the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, unanimously considered as one of the most important museums based in Italy for 20th century European and American art.

The museum is inside Peggy Guggenheim's former home, the beautiful Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on Venice’s Grand Canal.

The visit takes you through the dining room with its original chairs and table, the kitchen, the drawing room, the library, the guest bedroom, Peggy’s room and the dressing room.

Each space holds major works of art from different movements and artists, from Francis Picabia’s Very Rare Picture on Earth (Très rare tableau sur la terre, 1915) and Robert Delaunay‘s Windows Open Simultaneously 1st Part, 3rd Motif (1912) to Piet Mondrian’s Composition No. 1 with Grey and Red 1938 / Composition with Red 1939 (1938-39) and Salvador Dalí’s Birth of Liquid Desires (1931-32).

If you’re a passionate art lover this visit will definitely turn into a  feast for the eyes and the senses since,  everywhere you turn, you will be able to admire works by Giorgio De Chirico, Constantin Brancusi, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Mark Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Jackson Pollock and Alexander Calder.

If you need a break you can always have a little walk around the sculpture garden and admire pieces from the permanent collection and sculptures on loan from other foundations, while also stop and ponder a bit in the corner of the garden where Peggy's ashes are buried alongside her beloved pet dogs.

An interesting addition to the museum is the Gianni Mattioli Collection that includes twenty-six Futurist works, a great way to learn more about Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, Mario Sironi, Ardengo Soffici, Ottone Rosai and Fortunato Depero and at the same time celebrate the 100th anniversary of Futurism. 

Designers who love injecting a bit of art into their collections will definitely manage to find enough inspirations while wandering through the different rooms: those who love a bit of healthy surrealism and unsettling symbolism à la Alexander McQueen, will probably end up studying for hours on end the bright colours, disturbing animals and bizarre monsters in Max Ernst's Attirement of the Bride (1940); those who like experimenting with materials, volumes and shapes will be mesmerised by Umberto Boccioni’s wood, cardboard, copper and iron sculpture Dinamismo di un cavallo in corsa + case (Dynamism of a Speeding Horse + Houses, 1914-15) and Antoine Pevsner's Surface développable (Developable Surface, 1938–1939); designers who like playing with colours will instead find refreshing inspirations in works such as Robert Delaunay’s Windows Open Simultaneously 1st Part, 3rd Motif (1912), Vasily Kandinsky’s Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2 (1913) and Gino Severini’s Mare=Ballerina (Sea=Dancer, 1914) and print addicts will be charmed by Man Ray's ink and charcoal drawings.   

Once you finish your visit you will probably wish you had been Peggy Guggenheim, and, in case you want to try and make this dream come true, you can stop at the nearby museum shop and buy Peggy’s extravagant sunglasses recently recreated by Safilo.

The butterfly shaped sunglasses are available with dark lenses or coloured lenses and black and white/coloured frames. You're warned, though, they will set you back €147,00. So maybe you'd better try and save your money and maybe invest it one day in a work of art. I guess Peggy would definitely approve.

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Comments

[Prada Sunglasses]

After reading this post,i've decided to visit Peggy Guggenheim Collection museum. Good inspiring post.

[Term Paper]

Certainly I am modern art lover and happen to be around Venice I will definitely visit the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

[Term Paper]

I really admire this, I mean it really looks interesting! Very nice write up. Anyways, its a Great post.