Confessions of an Art Addict

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM

Who would I have wished to invite for dinner? Peggy Guggenheim of course!

Slowly turning into an absolute Art Addict myself, without the same capacity to collect as her, but soon I will be able to present and show great artists that I believe in.

Interestingly enough she opened here first Gallery at the same age as me, or should I say inspiringly for me. Her gallery did not last long in London because of the second world war, and changes like creating a little museum instead. But, Peggy continued in New York, where she must be given the credit of bringing out some of the greatest artist of the last Century.

The list is long but she is probably best known for her support to Jackson Pollock and her interesting marriages and affairs that includes among others Laurence Vail, Samuel Beckett and Max Ernst.

Later Peggy decided that Venice was going to be where she would like to live, she bought a Palace and started showing Art right out of her home. Sometimes to the confusion of both visitors and staff.

The books is a refreshing comment on her addiction, she writes freely and honestly.

Quite entertaining at times.

As with her phallic horseman sculpture by Marino that she was showing:

"When the nuns came to be blessed by the Patriarch, who on special holy days, went by my house in a motorboat, I detached the phallus of the horseman and hid it in a drawer. I also did this on certain days when I had to receive stuffy visitors, but occasionally I forgot, and when confronted with this phallus found myself in great embarrassment. The only thing to do in such cases was to ignore it. In Venice a legend spread that I had several phalluses of different sizes, like spare parts, which I used in different occasions."

When it comes to it my biggest wish is not to have Peggy come to my dinner party, but that I could have been at one of her guests, it must have been extraordinary. But I will have to be grateful that I get to read about it.

With Love

Kristin