Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict 2015

Without collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim, art in the 20th century might have looked a little different today. She nurtured Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others and amassed a personal collection that surely rates among the five top reasons to visit Venice. She was wealthy, but by no means the wealthiest of the Guggenheims. She preferred the bohemian world to high society and had a good nose for where in the world the most exciting work was to be found. She was personally awkward, but sexually adventurous, something she flaunted to widespread amazement and dismay in a scandalous memoir. Her life story is chronicled here by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, recent cine-biographer of Diana Vreeland, and a comfortable inhabitant of the social eco-system in which her subject rebelled and thrived.

“Keeping Jackson Pollock afloat may have been her proudest achievement, but the list of artists who had their first exhibitions with Guggenheim is staggering… Vreeland gives a good sense of her impact, while telling stories of so many love affairs and ego clashes Art Addict never feels a bit like a history lesson.” — John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter