Peggy Guggenheim: The Last Dogaressa


Interesting exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection looking at the art she collected after she moved to Venice in 1948.

The first section looked at the 1848 Biennale where she took over the Greece Pavilion which was the first show of a modern art collection in post war Europe and her Jackson Pollock show at Museo Correr which was the first Pollock show in Europe. It was lovely that they had so many great Pollocks form the show here but the space was too small for such large pictures.

From her early days in the Palazzo on the Grand Canal Peggy established the idea of exhibitions in the space with a show of 20 pieces of contemporary sculpture, a few of which were shown here along with archive material from the show.

The show included work she bought from British artists including the dramatic Graham Sutherland shown here and a Bacon of a chimpanzee. There was also a fascinating room of kinetic and optical art works which really messed with your eyes.

What was also interesting was that because this post war art was in the exhibition the Palazzo itself was hung with work from the pre-wars years so overall giving a view of two collecting eras.

Closes 27 January 2020

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