Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Introduction The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum showcasing the collection of American heiress Peggy Guggenheim and her personal belongings. It is nicknamed the "Palazzo dei Leoni" (Lion Palace) due to the legend that lions were once kept in its garden. The exhibits include abstract and surrealist paintings and sculptures by artists such as Picasso's *The Poet on the Beach*, Duchamp's *Sad Young Man on a Train*, Pollock's *Moon-Woman* and Miró's *Seated Woman*.

Peggy Guggenheim, originally named Marguerite Guggenheim, was a renowned female tycoon, an important figure in advancing abstract and surrealist art movements, and an avid art collector. She came from New York’s most powerful Jewish family and grew up next door to the Rockefeller family. As a child, she was often confined to the family’s enormous study, surrounded by grim, oversized oil paintings. Perhaps it was a rebellion against her childhood that later fueled her intense passion for art.

She was a contradictory woman—so frugal that she would quarrel with family and friends over a coffee bill, yet so generous that she would spend lavishly to support struggling artists. Purchasing artworks, funding living expenses, and providing exhibition spaces were the three main ways Peggy supported many "surrealist" and "abstract expressionist" artists. It must be noted that what immortalized Peggy Guggenheim was not her collection, but her vision as an art patron and collector, as well as her romantic affairs with those surrealist artists. Transport Take vaporetto lines 1 or 82 and get off at the ACCADEMIA stop. Tickets/Opening Hours €8. Opening hours: 10:00–18:00 (closed Tuesdays)

Venice, Italy