Solomon Robert Guggenheim was born in Philadelphia in 1861 into a family of merchants. They earned most of their fortune in the mining industry. He himself is the founder of the foundation for the support of contemporary art, which received his name. Together with his wife Irena Rothschild earned a reputation as a philanthropist.
Biography
Solomon Guggenheim, starting in the mid-1890s, began to collect works by old masters, American landscapes, the French Barbizon school of painting and primitive art. The nature of his collection, however, radically changed in 1927 when he met Hilla Rebey (1890 - 1967). She introduced him to the work of the European avant-garde and examples of abstract art.
In July 1930, she organized a meeting with Vasily Kandinsky, whose work the collector bought for himself. Since 1930, the public has been allowed to view the Guggenheim collection in his private apartment at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Soon the walls were covered with paintings by artists such as Rudolph Bauer, Marc Chagall, Fernand Leger and Laszlo Moholi Nagy.
In 1937, he established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. This step led to the opening of the Museum of Biased Painting on East 54th Street in 1939, and then to the next temporary museum building in Townhouse at 1071, Fifth Avenue in 1947, as well as the involvement of Frank Lloyd Wright in 1943 to design a new building for posting collection. Guggenheim died in 1949 ten years before the completion of the museum, which received his name.
Charity Activities
The Guggenheim family left a strong mark in the smelting industry in the early 1900s. By 1918, the Guggenheim was the second richest family in America. However, they are more remembered as philanthropists. The five most famous benefactors came from this large family. By creating a number of foundations, the family sought to contribute to the development of society by financing research and the development of scientific thought.
Family charitable investments have traditionally focused on three areas. The first area of activity of the Guggenheim family is scientific research, including in the field of biology and aviation (John Simon Guggenheim Foundation). Secondly, the family finances the analysis of cultural activity, including scientific research on current socio-political issues and the promotion of research in the humanities (Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation). In addition, they are credited with significant charitable contributions to encourage creative individuals.
The Guggenheim family created a legacy by financing the development of foundations, schools, the creation of museums, collections of works of art, acts of individual creativity, innovation in science, and aeronautics.
Family history
Meyer Guggenheim (1828 - 1905) was a tailor of Jewish descent who immigrated to the United States in 1847. He and his wife had eight sons. Meyer created a family fortune at the end of the 19th century, starting with 300,000 investment in railroad stocks. After that, he switched to the import of Swiss embroidery, and then to the production of metals, including silver copper and lead. Meyer founded the Philadelphia Metallurgical Company and at the end of 1901 acquired the American smelter. At one time, the Guggenheim family was said to control 31 industrial, import, and agricultural companies in the United States and abroad.
Of his eight sons, Daniel, Solomon, and Simon are considered influential philanthropists.
Daniel Guggenheim (1856 - 1930) was engaged in most of the family business; He combined and led the companies Guggenheim and American Smelting. Solomon Robert (1981 - 1949) was also actively involved in the family business, creating a strong position in the mining industry, especially in Colombia. Simon (1867 - 1941) was for some time a Republican Senator from Colorado and the main buyer of ore for the family factory. For several years, he worked in Colorado, overseeing the mines in Leadville (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise).
Art collections
Starting to collect a large collection, Solomon, a famous American philanthropist, began planning to create a permanent exhibition in New York. He died before his project was completed, and Harry Guggenheim took care of completing his uncle's dream. Currently, the property of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum owns collected works by Peggy Guggenheim, whose extensive collection of works of art, as well as the estate were left to the museum after her death. The collection includes works by Kandinsky, Tanguy, Moore, Duchamp, Picasso, Rothko, Dali, Breton and Pollock. Peggy Guggenheim also sponsored artists such as Jackson Pollock, providing them with funds to create work at the beginning of their careers.
Expositions
Guggenheim Museum - an international museum that collects and exhibits contemporary art in New York and other places under the auspices of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. We will tell a little more about them. Its structural divisions:
- the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York;
- Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy;
- collections are also exhibited in Bilbao (Spain) and in Berlin (Germany).
Guggenheim Museum in New York
The museum grew out of private collections. It was managed by the Foundation and was renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952.
In 1959, he received permanent residence in a new building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is radically different from traditional museum design, the building is spirally twisted up and out in the form of sculptural coils of massive, unadorned white concrete. The interior exhibition space consists of a spiral ramp of six “floors” surrounding the open center space, illuminated by a glass dome supported by stainless steel ceilings.
The museum building was expanded in 1992 by adding the adjacent 10-story tower. The Guggenheim Museum has an extensive collection of twentieth-century European painting and American painting of the second half of the same century. The museum houses the world's largest collection of paintings by Vasily Kandinsky, as well as rich collections of works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Juan Miro and others. A modern sculpture is also represented here.
Other family museums
Peggy Guggenheim ’s collection was collected by Solomon R. Guggenheim’s niece, located in her former home, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, in Venice, and includes some famous works made in the style of cubism, surrealism and abstract expressionism. The collection and the house were donated to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1979.
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao opened in 1997 as a joint venture of the Guggenheim Foundation and the Basque Regional Administration of northwestern Spain. The museum complex, designed by American architect Frank O. Gehry, consists of interconnected buildings whose curved facades of limestone and titanium suggest a gigantic image of an abstract sculpture. The interior of the building, which is organized around a huge atrium, is mainly devoted to exhibits of modern art. Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin is a small exhibition area.
In 2006, it was announced that the new Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi, designed by Geri, would be built on Saadiyat Island as part of the proposed cultural district.
At the beginning of the 21st century, several Guggenheim museums were closed: Soho (1992 - 2001) in New York, the museum named after him in Las Vegas (2001 - 2003), and the Hermitage Guggenheim (2001 - 2008) in Las Vegas. The latter was a joint venture with the museum of the same name in St. Petersburg.