Solomon Robert Guggenheim (February 2, 1861 – November 3, 1949) was an American businessman and art collector. He is best known for establishing the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and his long-time art advisor, artist Hilla von Rebay. The foundation is a leading institution for the collection, preserv ...

and the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

in New York City. Guggenheim was born into a wealthy mining family, and he founded the Yukon Gold Company in Alaska, among other business interests. He began collecting art in the 1890s, and he retired from his business after World War I to pursue art collecting. He eventually focused on modern art under the guidance of artist Baroness

Hilla von Rebay Hildegard Anna Augusta Elisabeth Freiin Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, known as Baroness Hilla von Rebay or simply Hilla Rebay (31 May 1890 – 27 September 1967), was an abstract art, abstract artist in the early 20th century and co-founder and first di ...

, creating an important collection by the 1930s and opened his first museum in 1939.

Biography

Early life

Guggenheim was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, son of Meyer and Barbara Guggenheim and brother of

Simon Simon may refer to: People * Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon * Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon * Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genus ...

Benjamin Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thi ...

, Daniel, and five other siblings. He was of Swiss and Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Following studies in Switzerland at the Concordia Institute in Zürich, he returned to the United States to work in the family mining business, later founding the Yukon Gold Company in

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

. In 1891, he turned around the Compañia de la Gran Fundición Nacional Mexicana. He married Irene Rothschild, daughter of

Victor Henry Rothschild Victor Henry Rothschild or V. Henry Rothschild (April 6, 1835 – May 16, 1911) was an American businessman. Biography Victor Henry Rothschild was one of seven children born to a German Jews, Jewish family on April 6, 1835 in Nordstetten, Baden-W ...

, in 1895. His children were Eleanor May (1896–1992; later Lady Castle Stewart after her marriage to

Arthur Stuart, 7th Earl Castle Stewart Arthur Stuart, 7th Earl Castle Stewart, MC (6 August 1889 – 5 November 1961), styled Viscount Stuart from 1915 to 1921, was an Anglo-Irish peer and Unionist politician. Background and education Stuart was the third son of Andrew John Stuart ...

), Gertrude (1898–1966) and Barbara Guggenheim (1904–1985). He began collecting works of the old masters in the 1890s. He retired from his business in 1919 to devote more time to art collecting and in 1926, met Baroness Hilla von Rebay. In 1930, they visited

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

’s studio in Dessau, Germany, and Guggenheim began to purchase Kandinsky's work. The same year, Guggenheim began to display the collection to the public at his apartment in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Guggenheim's purchases continued with the works of Rudolf Bauer, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger, and

László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the ...

Foundation and museum

In 1937, Guggenheim established the

to foster the appreciation of modern art, and in 1939, he and his art advisor, Baroness Rebay, opened a venue for the display of his collection, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, at 24 East 54th Street. Under Rebay's guidance, Guggenheim sought to include in the collection the most important examples of

non-objective art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19t ...

available at the time, such as Kandinsky's ''Composition 8'' (1923), Léger's ''Contrast of Forms'' (1913) and

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...

's ''Simultaneous Windows'' (2nd Motif, 1st Part)'' (1912).Calnek, Anthony, et al. ''The Guggenheim Collection'', pp. 39–40, New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2006 By the early 1940s, the museum had accumulated such a large collection of avant-garde paintings that the need for a permanent building to house the art collection had become apparent.Winter, Damon
"Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum"
''The New York Times'', October 21, 2009, accessed March 7, 2012 In 1943, Guggenheim and Rebay commissioned architect

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

to design a new museum building.Vail, p. 333 In 1948, the collection was greatly expanded through the purchase of art dealer

Karl Nierendorf Karl Nierendorf (18 April 1889 – 25 October 1947) was a German banker and later, art dealer. He was particularly known for championing the work of contemporary Expressionists in Cologne and Berlin before the War, especially Paul Klee, Otto Dix, a ...

's estate of some 730 objects, notably German expressionist paintings. By that time, the museum's collection included a broad spectrum of

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

and

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

works, including paintings by

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...

Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expres ...

and Joan Miró. Guggenheim died in 1949 on Long Island, New York, and the museum was renamed the

in 1952. The museum opened in New York City on October 21, 1959.

Legacy

In addition to the New York Museum, the Guggenheim Foundation operates, among other things, the

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Sp ...

in Spain and the

Peggy Guggenheim Collection The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro ''sestiere'' of Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection is housed in the , an 18th-century palace, which was the home ...

in Venice, which was established by Guggenheim's niece,

Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down wi ...

Citations

General and cited references

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Guggenheim, Solomon 1861 births 1949 deaths 19th-century art collectors 20th-century art collectors American art collectors American people of Swiss-Jewish descent American philanthropists Burials at Salem Fields Cemetery Businesspeople from Philadelphia Solomon R. Guggenheim Jewish American art collectors Jewish American philanthropists Museum founders