Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery

Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery

Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery opened in 1942 in New York City and functioned as a nexus for avant-garde art where European émigrés and American modernists intersected. The gallery's programming and presentation combined experimental exhibition design with ambitious surveys, fostering connections among figures from Marcel Duchamp to Jackson Pollock. Its brief but intense existence influenced institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and collected patrons including Doris Duke and Gertrude Stein.

History and Founding

The gallery was founded by Peggy Guggenheim with support from associates including Max Ernst, Gala Dalí ally networks, and advisors linked to Alfred Barr of Museum of Modern Art and Julien Levy. Initial staffing drew on curatorial contacts like Peggy Guggenheim’s partner Tancredi Parmeggiani and administrators who had worked with Bauhaus émigrés and Surrealist organizers. The opening followed wartime migrations that brought artists such as Marcel Duchamp, André Masson, Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Arshile Gorky, and Max Ernst to New York after events like the Fall of France and the Spanish Civil War. Financial backing and publicity involved figures from the Guggenheim family, collectors like Alfred Stieglitz allies, and critics aligned with Willem de Kooning advocacy. The gallery’s operations from 1942–1947 encompassed wartime exhibitions, fund-raising collaborations with patrons such as Peggy Guggenheim’s contemporaries Samuel Kootz, Leo Castelli beginnings, and exchanges with curators at Whitney Museum of American Art and The British Museum liaison networks.

Architecture and Interior Design

The gallery space at 30 West 57th Street was redesigned with contributions from artistic collaborators including Georges Hugnet-style scenographers and stage designers in the circle of Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger. Interior treatments incorporated freestanding bays, mirrored surfaces like those used by Marcel Duchamp in installations, and theatrical lighting reminiscent of Cecil Beaton photographs of Gala Dalí environments. The "Abstract Gallery" and "Surrealist Gallery" were separated by movable walls inspired by Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe modernist vocabularies, while furniture and display cases referenced collectors such as Charles and Ray Eames prototypes and Eileen Gray designs. The installation strategies echoed exhibition experiments at Salon des Réalités Nouvelles and avant-garde staging by Constantin Brâncuși allies, creating immersive environments comparable to projects by Sergei Diaghilev and Vladimir Tatlin proponents.

Exhibitions and Programs

Exhibitions ranged from solo shows for Jackson Pollock and Max Ernst to group surveys of Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and European émigré work featuring Frida Kahlo, Joan Miró, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, and Andre Breton-affiliated artists. The gallery hosted performances and events with participants such as John Cage, Dada-linked poets, and Merce Cunningham-style choreographers, while lectures included speakers like Harold Rosenberg, Clement Greenberg, and curators from Guggenheim Museum circles. Important exhibitions included early presentations of Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, David Smith, Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman, and Alexander Calder projects. The gallery's program experimented with catalogues and limited-edition publications involving editors close to T.S. Eliot and Tristan Tzara, and hosted benefit auctions with collectors such as Peggy Guggenheim supporters Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney advocates and international museum liaisons from Tate Gallery and Stedelijk Museum.

Artists and Collections

The gallery served as an incubator for émigré and American modernists including Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miró, André Masson, Man Ray, Frida Kahlo, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, William Baziotes, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, David Smith, Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, Stuart Davis, Alice Neel, Helen Frankenthaler (early connections), and Lee Krasner. The collection and rotating loans included works by Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, Max Beckmann, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Paul Éluard-affiliated artists, and emerging figures such as Clyfford Still, James Brooks, Grace Hartigan, and Philip Guston. Many pieces later entered institutional holdings at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Israel Museum, and regional collections with patrons like Peggy Guggenheim’s correspondents Joseph Glasco and Peggy Guggenheim’s advisors including Sonia Delaunay contacts.

Influence and Legacy

The gallery’s radical exhibition design and promotion of painters such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko contributed to the emergence of Abstract Expressionism and reshaped New York’s prominence between Paris and London. Its legacy affected curatorial practice at Museum of Modern Art, influenced dealers like Leo Castelli, Kootz Gallery operators, and inspired later alternative spaces such as The Kitchen, Printed Matter, and PS1 Contemporary Art Center. Scholarship on the gallery connects to studies of Surrealism, Dada, Bauhaus migration, and wartime transatlantic networks involving institutions like Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Philadelphia Museum of Art. The careers of artists shown there—Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Joan Miró—underscore the gallery’s role as a catalyst for collectors including Peggy Guggenheim’s peers Sam Kootz, Doris Duke, and institutional acquisitions by Tate Gallery and Guggenheim Foundation.

Category:Art galleries in New York City Category:Peggy Guggenheim