0:00:02 > 0:00:09This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:12 > 0:00:13Is it working?
0:00:13 > 0:00:15I think... Yeah.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17- I have to check the battery, that means it's working.- How's that?
0:01:07 > 0:01:10I know that you gave first exhibitions
0:01:10 > 0:01:13to Hans Hofmann and Clyfford Still and...
0:01:13 > 0:01:15- Baziotes.- That's remarkable. - Motherwell.
0:01:15 > 0:01:17Rothko and Pollock.
0:01:22 > 0:01:27I think she was most proud of her achievement with Pollock.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30Because nobody believed in Pollock the way she did.
0:01:36 > 0:01:41She started with a very mixed bag of paintings.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45And she bought much more cleverly as she went on.
0:01:46 > 0:01:50In the end, she really seemed to know what she was doing.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07It seems to me that you have an intuition for talent,
0:02:07 > 0:02:08even before it's realised.
0:02:08 > 0:02:10Yes. Maybe.
0:02:14 > 0:02:18You know, I became an addict, and I sort of couldn't help it any more.
0:02:28 > 0:02:33She wanted to come into her own as her own person,
0:02:33 > 0:02:35and art became the vehicle.
0:02:36 > 0:02:40She wanted this art as a mirror for her own strangeness.
0:02:41 > 0:02:47It's a very fulfilled career, to be involved with the surrealists
0:02:47 > 0:02:49and then the abstract expressionists.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52So she begins in one place
0:02:52 > 0:02:54and she ends up in another place.
0:02:54 > 0:02:56She's a bridge character.
0:02:57 > 0:03:02You don't have to paint a figure in order to express human feelings.
0:03:03 > 0:03:05Modern art, it seems to me,
0:03:05 > 0:03:07is working, isn't it?
0:03:07 > 0:03:10And expressing an inner world.
0:03:14 > 0:03:16Did you feel it was a crazy life?
0:03:16 > 0:03:18Definitely, yes.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27I think that she did remarkably well
0:03:27 > 0:03:30for someone who had no art historical training,
0:03:30 > 0:03:36who had no, really, sort of innate taste or flair for things,
0:03:36 > 0:03:39but who had a passion
0:03:39 > 0:03:42to use art to promote herself
0:03:42 > 0:03:47and turn herself into a personality, to a star.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50She could... Because of her lack of beauty,
0:03:50 > 0:03:53she was never going to make it as a siren,
0:03:53 > 0:03:58as a desirable, glamorous, social figure.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02But, by God, she made it as a collector
0:04:02 > 0:04:06and as a kind of collector that had never quite existed before.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27Peggy, being a bit of a narcissist,
0:04:27 > 0:04:32was absolutely delighted at the idea of having a biographer.
0:04:32 > 0:04:34She called me her "last great friend"
0:04:34 > 0:04:36and when people would call in the afternoon
0:04:36 > 0:04:40or come to see her, she'd say, "I'm with my biographer!"
0:04:44 > 0:04:49Peggy appealed to me because of her eccentricities.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52And she had just a wonderfully colourful family.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06Both sides of Peggy's family came over and started off
0:05:06 > 0:05:09as peddlers, really, selling door-to-door.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13In the case of her mother's family, the Seligmans,
0:05:13 > 0:05:15they went into banking.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21And her father's family, the Guggenheims, they went into mining.
0:05:21 > 0:05:22And within 50 years,
0:05:22 > 0:05:25they progressed from selling door-to-door
0:05:25 > 0:05:27to having these enormous fortunes.
0:05:27 > 0:05:31Even though the Guggenheims became much wealthier than the Seligmans,
0:05:31 > 0:05:35the Seligmans looked down on them, because they had come later.
0:05:36 > 0:05:38Her mother Florette
0:05:38 > 0:05:41was one of the youngest of the James Seligman children,
0:05:41 > 0:05:43and they were all highly eccentric.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45Florette would repeat everything three times.
0:05:55 > 0:06:00Peggy's aunts and uncles were all famously off their rockers.
0:06:01 > 0:06:03There was another aunt, Fanny,
0:06:03 > 0:06:05who used to sing all her phrases.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09And so she'd arrive at somebody's house and say...
0:06:09 > 0:06:11- IN SING-SONG VOICE: - "Hello! I'm here!"
0:06:11 > 0:06:14Her husband was driven so nuts by her
0:06:14 > 0:06:17that he tried to kill her with a baseball bat.
0:06:17 > 0:06:19And since that didn't work,
0:06:19 > 0:06:21he then drowned himself with weights
0:06:21 > 0:06:23in the New York City reservoir.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30Ben, Peggy's father,
0:06:30 > 0:06:34was highly established by the time that Peggy was born.
0:06:36 > 0:06:40She had two sisters, Benita and Hazel,
0:06:40 > 0:06:42and she adored Benita.
0:06:42 > 0:06:44I had no other friends.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47Didn't your mother invite little girls over to play with you?
0:06:48 > 0:06:49Never.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01They lived like royalty.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04They had beautiful carriages,
0:07:04 > 0:07:06mansions on Fifth Avenue,
0:07:06 > 0:07:08nannies, servants galore.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14Joseph Seligman was great friends of Ulysses S. Grant,
0:07:14 > 0:07:15and would entertain him.
0:07:25 > 0:07:27The Guggenheim brothers,
0:07:27 > 0:07:31in addition to being known for their financial acumen and money,
0:07:31 > 0:07:33were also known to have multiple affairs.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21When Ben Guggenheim went down in the Titanic
0:08:21 > 0:08:26and his brothers went to see who was rescued on the Carpathia -
0:08:26 > 0:08:28down came his mistress,
0:08:28 > 0:08:31who was paid off by the Guggenheims to keep quiet.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43- You must have been extremely shocked when he died on the Titanic?- Yes.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46Did you feel angry and mad at your father
0:08:46 > 0:08:48for not trying to save himself more?
0:08:48 > 0:08:50He gave away his life vest!
0:08:50 > 0:08:52How could I be angry? I thought he was very noble.
0:09:48 > 0:09:50And she wasn't a rich Guggenheim.
0:09:50 > 0:09:51People thought she was,
0:09:51 > 0:09:54but she wasn't anything like as rich as most of the Guggenheims.
0:09:54 > 0:09:58Well, I'm sure that the poor Guggenheim was relative.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01I mean, she wasn't in any way poor.
0:10:02 > 0:10:07I first met Peggy Guggenheim... in the '70s...
0:10:07 > 0:10:09Early '70s.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11I liked her because I sort of felt sorry for her.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14I mean, there was a kind of vulnerability about her.
0:10:14 > 0:10:17She had this very strange accent, and I once said to her,
0:10:17 > 0:10:20"Where did you get that weird way of talking?"
0:10:20 > 0:10:23And she said, "There was one school on West 72nd Street
0:10:23 > 0:10:25"that about nine of us went to,
0:10:25 > 0:10:27"and we were all super-rich Jewish girls
0:10:27 > 0:10:30"and we all learned to talk this way and we still do."
0:10:33 > 0:10:36Peggy loved to shock and be the centre of attention.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39She shaved off her eyebrows when she was in school,
0:10:39 > 0:10:41and that became a cause celebre
0:10:41 > 0:10:45because that was so avant-garde, and so Peggy was always a rebel.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49She was supposed to inherit money
0:10:49 > 0:10:52and marry someone who also inherited money.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54And she, at some point early in her life,
0:10:54 > 0:10:58decided that that was not going to be who she was.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00When she was in her early 20s,
0:11:00 > 0:11:03she went to work at that bookstore Sunwise Turn.
0:11:43 > 0:11:48It's very strange, you move through life in a kind of dream.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59Paris. It was just the most exciting place, culturally,
0:11:59 > 0:12:00in the world, at that point.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03And not only in the visual arts,
0:12:03 > 0:12:05it was going on in music and ballet
0:12:05 > 0:12:07and theatre and everything else.
0:12:25 > 0:12:28Dada! Italique!
0:12:28 > 0:12:31Metallique! Mysterique!
0:12:31 > 0:12:33Dadaism is really coming out
0:12:33 > 0:12:35of this atrocity of World War I.
0:12:35 > 0:12:39Just the senseless amount of death and bloodshed
0:12:39 > 0:12:43and also the sickness and twistedness of the propaganda.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47So they're creating this language of disillusionment,
0:12:47 > 0:12:49of this kind of utter disgust
0:12:49 > 0:12:52with what the civilised world is doing.
0:12:59 > 0:13:03She found the whole Bohemian life there
0:13:03 > 0:13:06to be this alternative to the bourgeois,
0:13:06 > 0:13:07or the haute bourgeois life,
0:13:07 > 0:13:10that she'd always found herself to be an outsider in anyway.
0:13:10 > 0:13:14And so she immediately felt "these are my people".
0:13:18 > 0:13:21- Isn't that gorgeous? - It's gorgeous.- Ah, so beautiful.
0:13:21 > 0:13:23I was going to ask you what you were thinking of
0:13:23 > 0:13:24when you did that picture.
0:13:24 > 0:13:26God knows. SHE LAUGHS
0:13:26 > 0:13:29I think I must have known I looked gorgeous.
0:13:32 > 0:13:35The artists from all over Europe and the United States
0:13:35 > 0:13:37were making their way to Paris
0:13:37 > 0:13:40as though there were some magnet pulling them.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14Had you ever considered going to college?
0:14:14 > 0:14:17Yes, and my sister talked me out of it.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19I consider myself self-educated.
0:14:21 > 0:14:22When you sat in the cafes,
0:14:22 > 0:14:25you absorbed surrealism and you absorbed Cubism,
0:14:25 > 0:14:28you absorbed the ideas of the time.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53GENTLE GROANING AND PANTING
0:15:08 > 0:15:11- Did he court you?- Yes. He took me to the top of the Eiffel Tower,
0:15:11 > 0:15:13where he proposed to me.
0:15:13 > 0:15:15And then I ended up by marrying him.
0:15:17 > 0:15:19And I've got two children, Pegeen and Sindbad.
0:15:21 > 0:15:23We had terrible fights all the time.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27The fights were so many and so awful and so insane and...
0:16:05 > 0:16:07You wrote that, "Oh, husbands always get better..."
0:16:07 > 0:16:08Better after divorce, yeah!
0:16:08 > 0:16:11Oh, he became my best friend afterwards, yes.
0:16:11 > 0:16:13Yes, when he stopped beating me up, mm-hm.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19Who has been the most important man in your life,
0:16:19 > 0:16:21or can you answer that question?
0:16:21 > 0:16:25Yes, but that wasn't an artist, that was a writer. Someone...
0:16:25 > 0:16:28Er, an Englishman who's dead, who's been dead 30 years.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00He was a wonderful sportsman.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02Used to climb rocks with my children.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06- Was he fond of your children, was he...?- Oh, yes.
0:17:06 > 0:17:08- Did they love him?- Yes.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47Her sister Benita died in childbirth,
0:18:47 > 0:18:49so Peggy was bereft.
0:18:49 > 0:18:51And something that does not appear in her memoirs -
0:18:51 > 0:18:53it's a glaring omission -
0:18:53 > 0:18:56but her sister Hazel went up to the roof of the Hotel Surrey
0:18:56 > 0:19:00and she took her three-year-old and her one-year-old up there,
0:19:00 > 0:19:02but she was divorcing their father, Milton Waldman,
0:19:02 > 0:19:04and she'd gone around saying,
0:19:04 > 0:19:07"I'd rather see the children dead than have Milton have them."
0:19:08 > 0:19:10So somehow, mysteriously,
0:19:10 > 0:19:13they wind up dead over the parapet.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35Playing Peggy Guggenheim,
0:19:35 > 0:19:40I got hooked on something mysterious about her,
0:19:40 > 0:19:42something enigmatic...
0:19:44 > 0:19:48..that to this day I don't entirely understand.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53She had this hunger, which is about life,
0:19:53 > 0:19:59pulling against this undertow of unbeatable sadness.
0:19:59 > 0:20:03So her sexual life was her way of connecting.
0:20:03 > 0:20:05Humanly connecting.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11Well, I had so many odd people!
0:20:11 > 0:20:14I just... I don't know, because I was lonely, I guess.
0:20:14 > 0:20:18I think I was sort of a nymphomaniac!
0:20:18 > 0:20:20She wanted lovers.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23Er, everybody else had lovers, why shouldn't she have one?
0:20:23 > 0:20:27If I had one question for Peggy Guggenheim, it would probably be,
0:20:27 > 0:20:29how was Samuel Beckett in bed?
0:20:29 > 0:20:32His... I suppose his conversation,
0:20:32 > 0:20:35his mind, probably fascinated me more than anything else.
0:20:36 > 0:20:40She said that she'd never met anyone like Beckett.
0:20:40 > 0:20:41They'd been in bed for four days
0:20:41 > 0:20:43and the only time they separated
0:20:43 > 0:20:46was when he reached out the door to get the sandwiches
0:20:46 > 0:20:49the room service had sent for them!
0:20:49 > 0:20:51I liked intellectual men.
0:20:51 > 0:20:54I liked very tall, dark, good-looking men.
0:20:55 > 0:20:57But all my lovers certainly were not that.
0:20:57 > 0:21:01The artists, she loved them because they were artists,
0:21:01 > 0:21:03not because they were sexy men.
0:21:03 > 0:21:06I mean, they actually were sexy men...
0:21:06 > 0:21:08but I think sex and art
0:21:08 > 0:21:12went absolutely hand-in-hand in her brain.
0:21:13 > 0:21:18She went for the bad boys and, er, it didn't do her any good.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22I think art gave a meaning to her life
0:21:22 > 0:21:25as well as confirmed certain...
0:21:25 > 0:21:28The modern art, the avant-gardes
0:21:28 > 0:21:32confirmed her sense of being, in some peculiar, way an outsider.
0:21:32 > 0:21:36Art became her way of finding herself emotionally.
0:21:42 > 0:21:44I was in search of an occupation
0:21:44 > 0:21:47and to have an interest, something to do,
0:21:47 > 0:21:49after my children were in boarding school
0:21:49 > 0:21:51and I was alone in the country in England,
0:21:51 > 0:21:53and I came up to London
0:21:53 > 0:21:57and opened this art gallery in Cork Street called Guggenheim Jeune.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01She's mulling around whether
0:22:01 > 0:22:04she should start a publishing company or an art gallery,
0:22:04 > 0:22:08and one of her friends says, "Well, start an art gallery, it's cheaper."
0:22:36 > 0:22:38She quite early on began to show
0:22:38 > 0:22:40the work of the European surrealists.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43A little exhibition for Cocteau,
0:22:43 > 0:22:45she was introduced to Tanguy,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48she knew Andre Breton already by this time.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01How did Guggenheim Jeune change your former life?
0:23:01 > 0:23:03Must have been a dramatic difference.
0:23:03 > 0:23:05Completely different, yes.
0:23:05 > 0:23:07I always adapt myself to everything very quickly.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11- Did you just plunge in and devote all your energy to it?- Yes, yes.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14Except the time that I ran to Paris to see Beckett!
0:23:30 > 0:23:33surrealism decided that the subconscious mind
0:23:33 > 0:23:36was the source of all great creativity
0:23:36 > 0:23:39and this was the answer to the art of the future.
0:23:44 > 0:23:46I think Peggy was a woman of great intuitions.
0:23:46 > 0:23:48She learned quite quickly
0:23:48 > 0:23:50what it meant to have an eye.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53She followed her own intuitions, she had the courage to do so,
0:23:53 > 0:23:56and that is a pattern that goes on throughout her life.
0:23:58 > 0:24:00She wanted this outsider art,
0:24:00 > 0:24:02art that was then outrageous,
0:24:02 > 0:24:04that was different.
0:24:04 > 0:24:07Strange art mirroring herself.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12Peggy was absolutely at the cutting edge.
0:24:13 > 0:24:17She gave a huge number of shows at her gallery
0:24:17 > 0:24:20and that alone was a major influence
0:24:20 > 0:24:23on British thinking about modern art.
0:24:23 > 0:24:25The English, who really,
0:24:25 > 0:24:30except for the 1936 surrealist show at the Royal Academy,
0:24:30 > 0:24:32hadn't much idea about modern art.
0:24:32 > 0:24:35Most people thought it was rubbish.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38Mrs Guggenheim, but you might, as a patron,
0:24:38 > 0:24:40acquire a collection of rubbish.
0:24:40 > 0:24:41That's always possible.
0:24:41 > 0:24:43Yes, of course, easily, if you have no taste
0:24:43 > 0:24:45and you don't know what you're doing
0:24:45 > 0:24:48and you don't take advice from the right people.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51You can get yourself in an awful lot of trouble.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55Peggy Guggenheim really worked with a kind of consensus of advice,
0:24:55 > 0:24:57and it was only from artists
0:24:57 > 0:25:00and only from people she really respected,
0:25:00 > 0:25:03and the biggest voice in her head, the strongest advice,
0:25:03 > 0:25:07the one she probably took most often, was from Marcel Duchamp.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13I knew Marcel Duchamp since 1921.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16I met him because he was a boyfriend of one of my best friends,
0:25:16 > 0:25:17Mary Reynolds.
0:25:17 > 0:25:21And after that we became great friends.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25He taught me everything about modern art that I know today,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28taught me the difference between surrealism and abstract art.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31He arranged all my exhibitions, did everything for me.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34I don't know what I would have done without him,
0:25:34 > 0:25:37because he really was my great, great teacher.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39I thought of the idea of a box,
0:25:39 > 0:25:43in which they would be mounted, like in a small museum.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46Practically all your work is in here.
0:25:46 > 0:25:47Practically all of it,
0:25:47 > 0:25:50I think very few things are missing.
0:25:52 > 0:25:53And there it is.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57The Mona Lisa with a moustache and a goatee.
0:25:57 > 0:26:01That was, of course, a great iconoclastic gesture
0:26:01 > 0:26:02on my part and...
0:26:02 > 0:26:04Sacrilegious.
0:26:04 > 0:26:06Sacrilegious, blasphemous, all you want.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11The Bottle Rack was a perfect expression of the readymade
0:26:11 > 0:26:15because it had no connection whatsoever with art.
0:26:18 > 0:26:22The most mundane everyday object
0:26:22 > 0:26:26could be elevated to fine art
0:26:26 > 0:26:28by the mere choice of an artist,
0:26:28 > 0:26:30and this is the Duchampian conceit,
0:26:30 > 0:26:34that opens up a Pandora's box of...
0:26:34 > 0:26:37future avenues for art.
0:27:02 > 0:27:04Miss Guggenheim, in the gallery in London,
0:27:04 > 0:27:06who were some of the artists whom you introduced
0:27:06 > 0:27:08who created big excitement there?
0:27:08 > 0:27:11Well, I suppose Kandinsky really was the most exciting.
0:27:11 > 0:27:15He had his first show in England in my gallery.
0:27:19 > 0:27:21During this period, Kandinsky asked me
0:27:21 > 0:27:25if I would ask my uncle, Solomon Guggenheim,
0:27:25 > 0:27:28to buy one of his early paintings which he'd always wanted.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32So I asked him if he would like to buy this painting.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36I got an answer from him saying his curator, the Baroness Rebay,
0:27:36 > 0:27:37would send me her response.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42And this is it, which I shall now read.
0:27:42 > 0:27:44"Dear Mrs Guggenheim Jeune,
0:27:44 > 0:27:48"your gallery will be the last one of our foundation to use
0:27:48 > 0:27:51"if ever the need should force us to use a sales gallery."
0:27:52 > 0:27:55"You will soon find you are propagating mediocrity,
0:27:55 > 0:27:57"if not trash."
0:27:58 > 0:28:01Peggy's nemesis in many ways, Hilla Rebay,
0:28:01 > 0:28:04was the founding director of the Guggenheim here in New York.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07She was Solomon Guggenheim's adviser
0:28:07 > 0:28:09and Solomon was Peggy's uncle.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14Hilla of course was a dynamic person,
0:28:14 > 0:28:17I guess rather possessive, very assertive.
0:28:17 > 0:28:18She was a bombshell,
0:28:18 > 0:28:21and my grandfather was captivated by her.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41They were both following different paths,
0:28:41 > 0:28:43they both had different ideas.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47Peggy was often considered...to be the black sheep of the family.
0:28:47 > 0:28:51So I wrote to the Baroness Rebay this response.
0:29:16 > 0:29:21At Peggy's gallery in London she gave a show of children's art,
0:29:21 > 0:29:22and it was the first show
0:29:22 > 0:29:24that anything by Lucian Freud was ever exhibited.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29And what was the inspiration for the children's exhibit?
0:29:29 > 0:29:31Because Pegeen painted and I thought it would be nice
0:29:31 > 0:29:34to have a lot of schoolchildren's pictures also.
0:29:34 > 0:29:36It was a beautiful exhibition.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41No. Pegeen was really a painter.
0:29:41 > 0:29:43No-one never influenced her,
0:29:43 > 0:29:46she was absolutely self-taught and completely independent.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50What was Pegeen like as a child?
0:29:50 > 0:29:53She was always very, very beautiful.
0:29:53 > 0:29:55She had a complexion like a peach,
0:29:55 > 0:29:59and wonderful silver-flaxen golden hair.
0:30:00 > 0:30:01How did you get along?
0:30:01 > 0:30:04Was she an easy child to bring up or was she...difficult?
0:30:04 > 0:30:07Well, she never wanted to leave me or her governess.
0:30:07 > 0:30:11She was...very...very insecure.
0:30:31 > 0:30:36I had a big show of Tanguy, and that was one of the most successful ones.
0:30:36 > 0:30:40We really sold quite a lot of paintings.
0:30:42 > 0:30:43What was Tanguy like?
0:30:43 > 0:30:45Oh, he was adorable.
0:30:45 > 0:30:48Did he paint things for you when he visited you?
0:30:48 > 0:30:50Yes, he painted marvellous earrings.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55Would you have become such a collector, do you think,
0:30:55 > 0:30:58if you had not known so many artists personally?
0:30:58 > 0:31:01- Certainly, definitely. - Well, then, which came first -
0:31:01 > 0:31:03is it the art or the people, or was it both?
0:31:03 > 0:31:07No, the art came first, and the people came because of my idea
0:31:07 > 0:31:11to have this gallery, and by degrees I met more and more artists.
0:31:11 > 0:31:14Do you think that great artists are great people necessarily?
0:31:14 > 0:31:16They're certainly much more interesting
0:31:16 > 0:31:18than people who aren't intellectual,
0:31:18 > 0:31:21who aren't interested in the arts, who aren't creative.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24They're certainly more interesting than businesspeople.
0:31:24 > 0:31:28But do they measure up, or do they equal their own work?
0:31:28 > 0:31:30Sometimes they're disappointing,
0:31:30 > 0:31:34but sometimes they're even better than their work.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37When one meets artists, they turn out to be quite different
0:31:37 > 0:31:39to what one expects.
0:31:39 > 0:31:44Brancusi used to say, "Art is a fraud,"
0:31:44 > 0:31:45and I even say art is a mirage.
0:31:47 > 0:31:48But what I believe in
0:31:48 > 0:31:49is the artist, the man.
0:31:51 > 0:31:57So what to do, except to let everybody be the individual
0:31:57 > 0:32:00and be as much of an individual as they can be,
0:32:00 > 0:32:02and everyone for oneself,
0:32:02 > 0:32:03like in a shipwreck.
0:32:06 > 0:32:08And this venture only lasted about a year and a half,
0:32:08 > 0:32:12because it became so expensive I thought it wasn't worthwhile
0:32:12 > 0:32:14to go on trying to run a commercial gallery,
0:32:14 > 0:32:16because I never sold anything.
0:32:16 > 0:32:18So I decided it was better to spend the money
0:32:18 > 0:32:20by having a museum of modern art,
0:32:20 > 0:32:23which didn't exist in London.
0:32:23 > 0:32:26Once she'd decided to close Guggenheim Jeune
0:32:26 > 0:32:30she thought she'd invest a great deal more money and make a museum.
0:32:30 > 0:32:34So she signs up Herbert Read
0:32:34 > 0:32:36to inveigle him to leave his position
0:32:36 > 0:32:38as the Burlington Magazine editor
0:32:38 > 0:32:41and to be the director of her planned future museum in London.
0:32:41 > 0:32:43And so it was for the opening exhibition
0:32:43 > 0:32:46that he prepared this list - legendary list -
0:32:46 > 0:32:50of all the major movements and artists of the 20th century.
0:32:50 > 0:32:52But unfortunately the war came just at that time,
0:32:52 > 0:32:55and I decided it would be impossible
0:32:55 > 0:32:57to have a museum in London
0:32:57 > 0:32:59that might be bombed any moment.
0:33:06 > 0:33:10Most people think that everything the Nazis did was attacking,
0:33:10 > 0:33:14you know, primarily the Jews,
0:33:14 > 0:33:17but this was also an attack on modernism,
0:33:17 > 0:33:19and it culminated in 1937
0:33:19 > 0:33:22with an enormous exhibition in Munich
0:33:22 > 0:33:25called Entartete Kunst, or Degenerate Art.
0:33:25 > 0:33:27It's kind of amazing
0:33:27 > 0:33:32that all this energy went into collecting and bringing together
0:33:32 > 0:33:36650 examples of art that people should dislike.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53Then, when the war began, you left London.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56Well, I was sent to Paris to collect the pictures on the list
0:33:56 > 0:33:58that Herbert Read had made for me.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03During the first month of the war
0:34:03 > 0:34:05I tried to buy one painting a day.
0:34:07 > 0:34:09How did you go about doing that?
0:34:09 > 0:34:12Well, I had friends in Paris, Madame Van Doesburg,
0:34:12 > 0:34:15who was my best friend for years and years.
0:34:15 > 0:34:20And I had a friend who was a sort of art dealer, called Howard Putzel,
0:34:20 > 0:34:23and I had Marcel Duchamp, who introduced me to artists,
0:34:23 > 0:34:25and between these three people
0:34:25 > 0:34:27and I went around on my own and bought things.
0:34:28 > 0:34:30People telephoned me all day long
0:34:30 > 0:34:33and even came to my house in the morning
0:34:33 > 0:34:34and brought me pictures in bed.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39And actually the only one I literally bought in bed
0:34:39 > 0:34:40was this little Dali.
0:34:44 > 0:34:46She was lucky in her choice of time,
0:34:46 > 0:34:51because in 1939 the artists were desperate to sell things,
0:34:51 > 0:34:53and a number of the dealers were Jewish
0:34:53 > 0:34:57and were getting the hell out of Paris before the Germans arrived.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18During the war I wanted to buy a Brancusi.
0:35:19 > 0:35:22This is Brancusi's Bird In Space.
0:35:22 > 0:35:27I think it's one of Brancusi's favourite pieces of sculpture.
0:35:27 > 0:35:29I used to go and see him almost every day
0:35:29 > 0:35:33and he was a marvellous little man, sort of half-God and half-peasant.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48When I went back to take away this Bird In Space,
0:35:48 > 0:35:50Brancusi brought it out in his arms
0:35:50 > 0:35:52and tears were strolling down his cheeks,
0:35:52 > 0:35:55and I never knew if it was because he was parting with me
0:35:55 > 0:35:57or with his favourite bird.
0:36:01 > 0:36:03Do you remember Giacometti?
0:36:03 > 0:36:05Oh, very well, he was wonderful.
0:36:05 > 0:36:07- He looked like a lion.- Really?
0:36:07 > 0:36:10Yes, he had a very big head and shaggy hair and...
0:36:11 > 0:36:13His conversation was marvellous.
0:36:14 > 0:36:16How did you bargain?
0:36:16 > 0:36:19I mean, how difficult was it to get paintings at that time
0:36:19 > 0:36:21at the price you were prepared to pay?
0:36:21 > 0:36:24Then... There was no question of bargaining in those days
0:36:24 > 0:36:26because everything was so cheap.
0:36:26 > 0:36:28She came in at a good moment,
0:36:28 > 0:36:30I mean, so far as prices were concerned,
0:36:30 > 0:36:32and she didn't have all that much money to spend,
0:36:32 > 0:36:36and I think she did spend it rather cleverly and cannily.
0:36:36 > 0:36:40And, God knows, she's a Guggenheim, she knew how to do those things -
0:36:40 > 0:36:43I mean, that's one of the things she inherited.
0:36:43 > 0:36:45She managed to put together the nucleus
0:36:45 > 0:36:48of one of the great collections of modern art
0:36:48 > 0:36:52for the almost laughable sum of 40,000.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55For 40,000 you couldn't buy one of the paintings you have in that?
0:36:55 > 0:36:58- Not today.- Not even one of the 125?
0:36:58 > 0:37:01No, not even one probably, isn't that crazy?
0:37:03 > 0:37:05She just broke all the rules.
0:37:05 > 0:37:08There weren't that many precedents for women working,
0:37:08 > 0:37:09let alone working in the arts.
0:37:09 > 0:37:11It was a very male-dominated field.
0:37:13 > 0:37:15It was my freedom.
0:37:16 > 0:37:17My liberation.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22Peggy is a sort of model for the liberated woman.
0:37:22 > 0:37:24The very disturbed liberated woman!
0:37:27 > 0:37:29She did what she wanted to do,
0:37:29 > 0:37:31she had the means to do it,
0:37:31 > 0:37:36but I think she really was in advance of her times.
0:37:37 > 0:37:39There were other women,
0:37:39 > 0:37:42and there was, above all, another American Jewish woman
0:37:42 > 0:37:44in the form of Gertrude Stein
0:37:44 > 0:37:48whose example Peggy may have been following.
0:37:51 > 0:37:56I think that Peggy would love to have had Gertrude Stein's...gifts
0:37:56 > 0:38:01for words and, er, her extraordinary ability
0:38:01 > 0:38:02to promote herself.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04She liked helping the artists
0:38:04 > 0:38:08and she liked being like Gertrude Stein
0:38:08 > 0:38:11and having a good eye and picking the winners.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14She also had the guts to buy Cubist paintings
0:38:14 > 0:38:19which, in those days, were not valued nearly as highly
0:38:19 > 0:38:20as they are today.
0:38:20 > 0:38:24I seem to remember Picasso being rather vague about Peggy.
0:38:24 > 0:38:25I mean, he heard about her.
0:38:27 > 0:38:29She goes to Picasso and tries to buy something there
0:38:29 > 0:38:32and he says, "Madam, the lingerie is on the fifth floor."
0:38:36 > 0:38:40Clearly she was courageous in her choices,
0:38:40 > 0:38:42she stuck to her convictions,
0:38:42 > 0:38:45she listened to the right people,
0:38:45 > 0:38:48but she was the subject of ridicule and disparagement
0:38:48 > 0:38:50a lot of the time,
0:38:50 > 0:38:52and yet that didn't seem to bother her so much.
0:38:52 > 0:38:54She just...ploughed forward.
0:38:58 > 0:39:01On the day that Hitler invaded Norway,
0:39:01 > 0:39:05I walked into Leger's studio and bought a wonderful painting.
0:39:07 > 0:39:08And then, this was in 1940,
0:39:08 > 0:39:10and how did you get all that art out of Paris?
0:39:12 > 0:39:14Well, that was very, very difficult.
0:39:14 > 0:39:16First of all, I wanted all these things saved,
0:39:16 > 0:39:18and went to talk to the Louvre people,
0:39:18 > 0:39:19because Leger had suggested
0:39:19 > 0:39:22the Louvre would save these works of art with theirs.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24Then, after I had them all prepared,
0:39:24 > 0:39:27the Louvre changed their mind, said they weren't worth saving.
0:39:27 > 0:39:30And the Louvre was sure that Mondrian wasn't worth saving
0:39:30 > 0:39:32and Picasso wasn't worth saving?
0:39:32 > 0:39:34- Exactly!- How extraordinary.
0:39:34 > 0:39:36I bet they're sorry now.
0:39:42 > 0:39:44Oh, I was, much more.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47And I wouldn't leave until I got the pictures there,
0:39:47 > 0:39:49but finally, a very lucky man
0:39:49 > 0:39:51who had done all the shipping and packing
0:39:51 > 0:39:54so I had the gallery, appeared and arranged the whole thing for me
0:39:54 > 0:39:58and sent the whole thing as household objects.
0:39:58 > 0:40:00We had sand sheets and blankets
0:40:00 > 0:40:02and casseroles and...
0:40:02 > 0:40:05Right there in the middle of the war with the submarines and everything?
0:40:05 > 0:40:06Yes, incredible, isn't it?
0:40:21 > 0:40:26I went to Marseille, and the Varian Fry Committee asked me
0:40:26 > 0:40:30if I would save certain surrealist painters from Europe.
0:40:32 > 0:40:35And among these people was Max Ernst and Andre Breton,
0:40:35 > 0:40:38and all Andre Breton's family.
0:41:19 > 0:41:21One of the surrealist painters
0:41:21 > 0:41:24with whom you obviously were closely involved was Max Ernst,
0:41:24 > 0:41:26and he makes a sort of link, doesn't he,
0:41:26 > 0:41:29between your life in Europe and your life in America again?
0:41:29 > 0:41:32I brought Max Ernst to America.
0:41:32 > 0:41:35Then, after Pearl Harbor, I married him.
0:41:37 > 0:41:40And Max Ernst was extremely good-looking
0:41:40 > 0:41:42and very attractive to women.
0:41:42 > 0:41:47She was much envied for having Max Ernst as a husband.
0:41:47 > 0:41:49It was a good deed in that,
0:41:49 > 0:41:52I mean, she got Max out of Europe and to America,
0:41:52 > 0:41:54and had he been caught by the Germans
0:41:54 > 0:41:56he would have been put in a concentration camp
0:41:56 > 0:41:59for being a modernist artist.
0:42:00 > 0:42:02I don't think he was at all faithful.
0:42:02 > 0:42:04I mean, it was a clever career move,
0:42:04 > 0:42:07and I think that he didn't give a damn for her.
0:42:07 > 0:42:09When did you know you were in love with him?
0:42:09 > 0:42:13- When you first saw him, or...? - Right away, after a few days.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16- Was he still beautiful then? - Yes, wonderful. Terribly attractive.
0:42:16 > 0:42:19Beautiful, beautiful. Had a beautiful body also.
0:42:21 > 0:42:24Did Ernst love being the centre of attention?
0:42:24 > 0:42:26Oh, he thought about nothing else.
0:42:33 > 0:42:35You said that he could be jealous of your clothes.
0:42:35 > 0:42:36He loved clothes.
0:42:36 > 0:42:39He wanted to dress up always.
0:42:39 > 0:42:40When I bought a fur coat once,
0:42:40 > 0:42:43he was so jealous I had to buy him one also.
0:42:49 > 0:42:52When Peggy Guggenheim arrives in 1941,
0:42:52 > 0:42:56the art world was a small kind of gentlemen's club,
0:42:56 > 0:42:58and the story was that you could fit
0:42:58 > 0:43:01the entire art world in any given room.
0:43:01 > 0:43:03Well, it's got a lot of people coming here.
0:43:03 > 0:43:07A lot of Europeans are being displaced by the war.
0:43:07 > 0:43:09- Miro was here.- Yes, Miro was here.
0:43:09 > 0:43:10- Leger, and...- Yes.
0:43:10 > 0:43:12Tanguy, Masson.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Mondrian.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20Peggy Guggenheim was one of the links between
0:43:20 > 0:43:23European and American modernism.
0:43:23 > 0:43:27Between surrealism and abstract expressionism.
0:43:27 > 0:43:29I think Peggy was a pollinator.
0:43:29 > 0:43:32She wanted to be widely regarded
0:43:32 > 0:43:35as a major figure in the art world.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39What was life like during those days,
0:43:39 > 0:43:42here, with all the expatriate artists in New York?
0:43:42 > 0:43:43Oh, it was wonderful.
0:43:43 > 0:43:45It was terribly stimulating and terribly exciting,
0:43:45 > 0:43:48because New York then became the art centre of the world -
0:43:48 > 0:43:49Paris no longer existed in that way.
0:43:51 > 0:43:54Which comes first - Peggy Guggenheim the freethinker
0:43:54 > 0:43:57who rebels and kind of moves away from home and changes her life,
0:43:57 > 0:44:02or Peggy Guggenheim the person who enters into these spheres,
0:44:02 > 0:44:06these artistic orbits, where everyone is like that,
0:44:06 > 0:44:10and certainly informing her of even wilder ways to break the rules?
0:44:15 > 0:44:17When Peggy opened Art Of This Century
0:44:17 > 0:44:19on 57th Street, in October '42,
0:44:19 > 0:44:21she felt very committed to the idea
0:44:21 > 0:44:25of assembling a collection and opening it to the public.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27And she saw that, by collecting the art of her time,
0:44:27 > 0:44:30that that would set up
0:44:30 > 0:44:32a path, if you will, toward the future.
0:44:35 > 0:44:37Peggy Guggenheim's gallery
0:44:37 > 0:44:40was one of the first international galleries in New York City
0:44:40 > 0:44:43mixing American and European art.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52In terms of American painting, what was the role of your gallery?
0:44:52 > 0:44:53What would you say it was?
0:45:02 > 0:45:04What about Putzel's role in your gallery?
0:45:04 > 0:45:06It seems to me he was very important in providing people...
0:45:06 > 0:45:08Terribly important.
0:45:25 > 0:45:28It was in Peggy Guggenheim's gallery
0:45:28 > 0:45:30called Art Of This Century.
0:45:32 > 0:45:33Do you remember Motherwell?
0:45:33 > 0:45:35- Very well.- What impressed you about Motherwell?
0:45:35 > 0:45:37He was very intellectual.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40He used to give lectures in my gallery about the paintings.
0:45:41 > 0:45:47The function of abstraction is to get rid of a lot of reality.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51You start with as much richness as you want, and subtract.
0:46:29 > 0:46:34Art Of This Century was an astonishing innovation.
0:46:34 > 0:46:39Not only this radical group of artists who were redefining art,
0:46:39 > 0:46:41but also the space was something
0:46:41 > 0:46:44that no-one had ever imagined before.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57What made you think of having a gallery that was all decorated?
0:46:57 > 0:46:59Oh, that was because Putzel said
0:46:59 > 0:47:01why don't you get Kiesler to give you a few little ideas?
0:47:01 > 0:47:05And those were the few little ideas, created this marvellous gallery.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09Frederick Kiesler had been a long-time friend of Duchamp's.
0:47:09 > 0:47:11He was friends with Mondrian,
0:47:11 > 0:47:15and he was spiritually the right visionary for Peggy.
0:47:31 > 0:47:37Kiesler and Peggy felt very strongly that her art should be accessible.
0:47:37 > 0:47:42All the abstract pictures were hung in halls on universal joints
0:47:42 > 0:47:45so that you could actually take hold of the picture and turn it,
0:47:45 > 0:47:48swivel it into the light and so on,
0:47:48 > 0:47:52and really use it with the same familiarity
0:47:52 > 0:47:54that one does a library.
0:48:02 > 0:48:04That's how people get turned on to art,
0:48:04 > 0:48:07is that they have an intimate relationship,
0:48:07 > 0:48:09rather than a distant one.
0:48:09 > 0:48:11And Peggy Guggenheim really understood that.
0:48:29 > 0:48:32Some of the critics referred to the installation
0:48:32 > 0:48:35as either a Coney Island or an amusement-park ghost train.
0:48:35 > 0:48:37And it was a wacky environment.
0:48:37 > 0:48:41There was a tape recording of an express train
0:48:41 > 0:48:43which would go off every few minutes.
0:48:44 > 0:48:46Light switch would flash on and off.
0:48:47 > 0:48:50The experience was supposed to be unsettling, dreamlike.
0:49:00 > 0:49:05Most people still feel safest in their contemplative gaze
0:49:05 > 0:49:08when they're in the most sterile white cube possible.
0:49:08 > 0:49:13The presentation of the art was really radical,
0:49:13 > 0:49:15and is still radical today.
0:49:16 > 0:49:18Well, it doesn't surprise me
0:49:18 > 0:49:20that Peggy Guggenheim was regarded as a black sheep,
0:49:20 > 0:49:22because she really did it on her own.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25She really was a self-made collector,
0:49:25 > 0:49:28and kind of a self-made person, in the broader sense.
0:49:28 > 0:49:32I mean, she really... She was her greatest creation.
0:49:34 > 0:49:35I had a wonderful figure.
0:49:35 > 0:49:39I was very thin, chestnut hair, green-blue eyes.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43My nose probably was always too big! SHE LAUGHS
0:49:43 > 0:49:47She was one of the first people to have plastic surgery,
0:49:47 > 0:49:48because she hated her nose.
0:49:48 > 0:49:51And her nose was a disaster.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55I love the story about your nose job. Is it quite true?
0:49:55 > 0:49:58- Absolutely true, yes. - Why would the doctors not...?
0:49:58 > 0:49:59They couldn't do the one I wanted.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02- So you just had them stop in the middle?- It was so painful.
0:50:02 > 0:50:04It was terrible, so I made them stop.
0:50:06 > 0:50:08When her nose job was botched,
0:50:08 > 0:50:10she decided not to ever have it fixed,
0:50:10 > 0:50:14and just to guts it out with this kind of funny face.
0:50:14 > 0:50:20And I think that was kind of a root of a lot of her complexes.
0:50:21 > 0:50:24When you met Peggy, she wasn't at all forward and confident.
0:50:24 > 0:50:28She was charming, she was socially adept,
0:50:28 > 0:50:30but you could see that she was...
0:50:30 > 0:50:32She was quite timid.
0:50:32 > 0:50:33She was very insecure.
0:50:33 > 0:50:37And the way she spoke, with very little bit of movement of the mouth,
0:50:37 > 0:50:39and every once in a while, she would just...
0:50:39 > 0:50:41do something with her tongue.
0:50:43 > 0:50:44Um... It would come out.
0:50:48 > 0:50:50'I'm sure she was totally unaware of it.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54'The only time that I saw that she really relaxed was
0:50:54 > 0:50:58'she picked up this little sculpture by Arp.'
0:50:58 > 0:51:00This is the first sculpture I ever bought.
0:51:00 > 0:51:02'She became a little more animated.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06'She was happy when she was actually connected to the art.'
0:51:27 > 0:51:29Peggy made things happen.
0:51:29 > 0:51:33She did things, and other things happened as a consequence of that.
0:51:33 > 0:51:36And it was absolutely true in Pollock's career.
0:51:37 > 0:51:40Peggy must have met Jackson Pollock in the winter of 1942-1943,
0:51:40 > 0:51:42become aware of him.
0:51:42 > 0:51:43But for somebody used to
0:51:43 > 0:51:45the sophistications of the European avant garde,
0:51:45 > 0:51:48it was very hard to take on board,
0:51:48 > 0:51:50and it was eventually Mondrian,
0:51:50 > 0:51:54during the jury session for her so-called Spring Salon in 1943,
0:51:54 > 0:51:56who pushed Peggy over the top.
0:51:57 > 0:51:59Mondrian stood rooted to the spot
0:51:59 > 0:52:02in front of two paintings,
0:52:02 > 0:52:05and Peggy went over to him and merely said,
0:52:05 > 0:52:06"Dreadful, aren't they?
0:52:06 > 0:52:09"They're dreadful. Man has no discipline."
0:52:09 > 0:52:12And he said, "No, I'd like to look at this some more."
0:52:12 > 0:52:14She said, "Why?"
0:52:14 > 0:52:16And Mondrian said, "I have the feeling
0:52:16 > 0:52:19"that I'm looking at some of the most exciting work
0:52:19 > 0:52:21"that I've seen so far in America."
0:52:23 > 0:52:26Soon after exhibiting Pollock in her Spring Salon,
0:52:26 > 0:52:29she offers him his first one-man exhibition,
0:52:29 > 0:52:32and commissions from him what was to be his largest ever painting,
0:52:32 > 0:52:35a mural for her new address on 61st Street.
0:52:37 > 0:52:40I first met Jackson Pollock when he was working as a carpenter
0:52:40 > 0:52:44in my uncle's museum, so I rescued him from that,
0:52:44 > 0:52:47and wanted a mural for my entrance hall,
0:52:47 > 0:52:51a very long wall, about 23 feet wide.
0:52:54 > 0:52:56The picture seems to repeat itself all over.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00It's become a staple of abstract painting now, but at the time
0:53:00 > 0:53:03it was called, I say, exalted wallpaper,
0:53:03 > 0:53:07and then the mural, well, it just goes on and on.
0:53:07 > 0:53:08That's what made it so good.
0:53:10 > 0:53:14Pollock is still taken for this example of far-out-ism,
0:53:14 > 0:53:16an artist in the line of Duchamp,
0:53:16 > 0:53:18someone who knocked...
0:53:19 > 0:53:23Knocked you flat with his arbitrariness.
0:54:30 > 0:54:33Pollock was a very self-destructive character,
0:54:33 > 0:54:37and Peggy Guggenheim made an investment of genius.
0:54:37 > 0:54:39Once she was convinced of Pollock's importance,
0:54:39 > 0:54:42she gave him an income, she lent him the money
0:54:42 > 0:54:45to buy a house out in Springs, Long Island.
0:54:46 > 0:54:48Having the peace and the quiet
0:54:48 > 0:54:51and the distance from the social scene
0:54:51 > 0:54:53opened up a space for him,
0:54:53 > 0:54:57and he was truly working as an artist in full command.
0:54:58 > 0:55:01He had a lot more control than people...
0:55:01 > 0:55:02Than the myth would have.
0:55:02 > 0:55:04He could fling a scad of paint
0:55:04 > 0:55:07with the accuracy of a cowboy with a lasso.
0:55:11 > 0:55:15I gave him a small salary, 300 a month.
0:55:15 > 0:55:17God knows how he lived on it and painted on it,
0:55:17 > 0:55:20and bought canvases, but I suppose in those days
0:55:20 > 0:55:23it was a great deal more than it would be today.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26And he immediately bloomed forth
0:55:26 > 0:55:28and became what I consider
0:55:28 > 0:55:30one of the great artists of the 20th century.
0:55:32 > 0:55:35Does she make Jackson Pollock famous? No.
0:55:35 > 0:55:36Life magazine makes him famous.
0:55:36 > 0:55:40But she's there beforehand in a really significant way,
0:55:40 > 0:55:44and she is allowing this sense of a more heroic,
0:55:44 > 0:55:46larger-than-life version of art
0:55:46 > 0:55:49which was not the old-school way of doing it.
0:55:51 > 0:55:53I'm connected to Peggy Guggenheim
0:55:53 > 0:55:57in relation to Art Of This Century,
0:55:57 > 0:56:00because my mother showed with her,
0:56:00 > 0:56:03my father showed with her.
0:56:04 > 0:56:09The first time my father showed was in 1945 at the Autumn Salon,
0:56:09 > 0:56:15and my mother had her first one-man show with Peggy in 1946.
0:56:18 > 0:56:20Yeah, when I was three.
0:56:23 > 0:56:25Did you give any shows to women?
0:56:25 > 0:56:28- Just one-man shows? - Yeah, a lot of women.
0:56:28 > 0:56:32Another really important exhibition that Peggy did was called 31 Women.
0:56:32 > 0:56:36The first time that there had ever been an exhibition
0:56:36 > 0:56:39devoted only to women artists, both American and European.
0:56:39 > 0:56:44And I think it was the first show of exclusively women artists ever,
0:56:44 > 0:56:46and it was, you know, Louise Nevelson,
0:56:46 > 0:56:49and Leonora Carrington and Meret Oppenheim, and so on.
0:56:49 > 0:56:51It was a remarkable show.
0:56:56 > 0:56:58Peggy was a sister in a lot of ways.
0:56:58 > 0:57:01She had a lot of really close female friends
0:57:01 > 0:57:04and, despite all of her activity with various men,
0:57:04 > 0:57:08at the end of the day she really believed very strongly in women.
0:57:11 > 0:57:13She marries Max Ernst,
0:57:13 > 0:57:15but she's hardly his only wife.
0:57:17 > 0:57:20And, in fact, he meets his next wife, Dorothea Tanning,
0:57:20 > 0:57:23curating a show for Peg's place.
0:57:36 > 0:57:38Artists' narcissism, you know,
0:57:38 > 0:57:42"art above all", "art more than life",
0:57:42 > 0:57:44you know, lead to problems.
0:58:16 > 0:58:19Gala Dali once criticised you
0:58:19 > 0:58:21for sacrificing your life to art.
0:58:22 > 0:58:25I never gave up collecting and running my gallery,
0:58:25 > 0:58:26and looking after artists.
0:58:27 > 0:58:31When I was married to Max Ernst, even, I continued.
0:58:31 > 0:58:33Probably didn't help the marriage very much,
0:58:33 > 0:58:34but I continued nevertheless.
0:58:37 > 0:58:39Peggy Guggenheim was a lonely lady.
0:58:39 > 0:58:46I sensed that, and I invited her to come for a simple meal.
0:58:46 > 0:58:48And she was so grateful,
0:58:48 > 0:58:49because nobody ever thought
0:58:49 > 0:58:53that they should invite the great Peggy Guggenheim
0:58:53 > 0:58:56just for a common, ordinary pasta dinner, or something.
0:58:56 > 0:59:00And so she and I became quite friendly.
0:59:00 > 0:59:04I think that, in many ways,
0:59:04 > 0:59:07she didn't understand how much others tried to exploit her.
0:59:09 > 0:59:11And they did. They really did.
0:59:11 > 0:59:14And took advantage of her like mad.
0:59:14 > 0:59:18Including artists. That's why I called her "charmingly naive".
0:59:20 > 0:59:23Peggy and I were very good friends.
0:59:23 > 0:59:26She was a very open, genuine person,
0:59:26 > 0:59:28she was completely without any guile.
0:59:28 > 0:59:30She had no hidden agenda.
0:59:30 > 0:59:35You could always assume that what she said was what she really meant,
0:59:35 > 0:59:39and she wrote exactly the way she spoke.
0:59:44 > 0:59:47Everybody went mad when I wrote that book,
0:59:47 > 0:59:49I had 25 dreadful criticisms.
0:59:49 > 0:59:50They were terrible.
0:59:50 > 0:59:51They were very funny, though.
1:00:01 > 1:00:03I don't see why they should have been so upset,
1:00:03 > 1:00:06because I didn't say anything awful about the Guggenheims.
1:00:06 > 1:00:09My book is all about... All about fucking!
1:00:12 > 1:00:16On many levels, it's a very brilliant, insightful book.
1:00:16 > 1:00:17Getting the record clear
1:00:17 > 1:00:21and her feelings clear was very bold, very daring...
1:00:21 > 1:00:24I think her motivation in writing about exactly what she'd done,
1:00:24 > 1:00:26and who she'd slept with,
1:00:26 > 1:00:29was cos she didn't really care who knew,
1:00:29 > 1:00:32because it was just part of her innate being, that -
1:00:32 > 1:00:34she wasn't ever covering anything up.
1:00:36 > 1:00:38I came and spent the night with Paul Bowles once.
1:00:40 > 1:00:42I... I don't put in my book that I had an affair with him,
1:00:42 > 1:00:44but I think it's pretty obvious.
1:00:44 > 1:00:47- Fairly.- And we lay on a fur on the ground, and...
1:00:47 > 1:00:50And he put perfume on my wrists, and...
1:00:50 > 1:00:54- It all sounds very sort of sexy, doesn't it?- Very exotic.- Yes.
1:00:54 > 1:00:56- Was he very exotic?- Yes, very.
1:00:58 > 1:01:00Many of the men with whom she hung out
1:01:00 > 1:01:03were extremely promiscuous.
1:01:03 > 1:01:05But she was talked about as such a slut
1:01:05 > 1:01:08for doing the same thing that all the men around her were doing.
1:01:09 > 1:01:13That Mary McCarthy story is all about her promiscuity.
1:01:13 > 1:01:16Mary saw her as a wonderful target,
1:01:16 > 1:01:20and she wrote this merciless short story about Peggy.
1:01:20 > 1:01:25It's called The Cicerone. Polly Grabbe, I think she's called.
1:01:25 > 1:01:30And she talks about her life as a series of skids on banana peels,
1:01:30 > 1:01:34as represented by the various lovers she'd had.
1:01:34 > 1:01:38It's a bit two-dimensional and... a little too sharp.
1:01:38 > 1:01:41What about Mary McCarthy? How friendly were you with her?
1:01:41 > 1:01:43- She wrote something... - Oh, very, very friendly, yes.
1:01:50 > 1:01:53Mary McCarthy was hardly a Puritan herself,
1:01:53 > 1:01:56so why would that be the thing she focused on?
1:01:56 > 1:01:58Well, everyone focused on that.
1:01:58 > 1:02:00And I don't think Peggy Guggenheim
1:02:00 > 1:02:02did anything to discourage that focus.
1:02:02 > 1:02:04I mean, she was...quite proud of it.
1:02:19 > 1:02:20Did you ever have an affair with Mondrian?
1:02:20 > 1:02:22- Or was he too old?- No, never.
1:02:22 > 1:02:24I don't think he was too old,
1:02:24 > 1:02:25because I went to his studio one night
1:02:25 > 1:02:28and he showed me his paintings and then he kissed me,
1:02:28 > 1:02:30and when he kissed me he had an erection,
1:02:30 > 1:02:32which surprised me very much. INTERVIEWER LAUGHS
1:02:32 > 1:02:34- For someone that age.- Wonderful.
1:02:34 > 1:02:36- How old was he?- About 70, yes.
1:03:07 > 1:03:09I found her attractive.
1:03:10 > 1:03:13There was this extraordinary sense of self,
1:03:13 > 1:03:14there's something...
1:03:14 > 1:03:19Something really beautiful about an older woman..
1:03:19 > 1:03:22who knows who she is.
1:03:22 > 1:03:25Who has a great accomplishment.
1:03:25 > 1:03:27That, already, is sexy.
1:03:27 > 1:03:30I think Peggy had a very strange sort of form of sexiness.
1:03:30 > 1:03:31She wasn't...
1:03:31 > 1:03:32She didn't exude sexuality,
1:03:32 > 1:03:35but she had a kind of sexual aura
1:03:35 > 1:03:37that people did respond to.
1:03:37 > 1:03:39And she was a kind of...
1:03:39 > 1:03:42A mixture of old-fashioned and very, very modern.
1:03:43 > 1:03:45She was kind of testy if people assumed
1:03:45 > 1:03:48that she would tell you dirty stories
1:03:48 > 1:03:50or talk about sex or things like that.
1:03:50 > 1:03:53I think she was a little like a character in Proust
1:03:53 > 1:03:55called Madame de Villeparisis
1:03:55 > 1:03:59who, when she's young, recklessly throws away her reputation
1:03:59 > 1:04:02and thinks it's fun to do that.
1:04:02 > 1:04:04And then when she's older,
1:04:04 > 1:04:08she spends all of her time trying to recover her lost position,
1:04:08 > 1:04:11and I think Peggy was a little like that.
1:04:11 > 1:04:14Assembling her great collection and starting a museum -
1:04:14 > 1:04:17all of that was something that would preserve her name,
1:04:17 > 1:04:19and that's what she wanted to do.
1:04:19 > 1:04:21She was a Guggenheim, you know,
1:04:21 > 1:04:24and she had the ego of a Guggenheim.
1:04:24 > 1:04:27And she had a certain authority about her
1:04:27 > 1:04:30and people were very impressed by her name -
1:04:30 > 1:04:34she used the Guggenheim name to good ends
1:04:34 > 1:04:38and she'd carved out a niche for herself
1:04:38 > 1:04:40and she filled it,
1:04:40 > 1:04:42and she seemed to be doing it very well.
1:05:10 > 1:05:12When Peggy Guggenheim left New York,
1:05:12 > 1:05:14in some ways her reputation
1:05:14 > 1:05:17obscured her accomplishment.
1:05:17 > 1:05:18That her personality,
1:05:18 > 1:05:20what Clement Greenberg talks about as her gaiety -
1:05:20 > 1:05:22those were actually negatives.
1:05:22 > 1:05:25But I think even Greenberg knew enough
1:05:25 > 1:05:28to put that aside and say that she identified key artists
1:05:28 > 1:05:30in the New York School.
1:05:30 > 1:05:31She showed them first,
1:05:31 > 1:05:32she helped build their career,
1:05:32 > 1:05:35she helped to make it possible for them to do their work,
1:05:35 > 1:05:37and that was a huge accomplishment.
1:06:10 > 1:06:12There is no normal life in Venice.
1:06:12 > 1:06:15Here everything and everyone floats.
1:06:17 > 1:06:21It is this floatingness which is the essential quality of Venice.
1:06:21 > 1:06:23The reflections are like paintings -
1:06:23 > 1:06:26more beautiful than any painted by the greatest masters.
1:06:30 > 1:06:32Venice was really a place of passage,
1:06:32 > 1:06:36and so for someone like her to choose a place like Venice
1:06:36 > 1:06:38doesn't come at all as a surprise.
1:06:38 > 1:06:40The place really calls for
1:06:40 > 1:06:43that mix of people coming and going.
1:06:43 > 1:06:46However, what made her, I think, so different
1:06:46 > 1:06:47is that she stayed.
1:06:52 > 1:06:56I could understand coming back to Paris or to London, but why...?
1:06:56 > 1:07:00I couldn't go to London because I was afraid that my memoirs
1:07:00 > 1:07:01would cause me too much trouble.
1:07:03 > 1:07:05So I came to Venice, which I'd always adored,
1:07:05 > 1:07:08which had been my dream city.
1:07:23 > 1:07:25At last I could achieve my dream.
1:07:27 > 1:07:30She thought it was a funny little palace that she lived in
1:07:30 > 1:07:32because it didn't have a second floor.
1:07:32 > 1:07:36And she got it at a bargain, I think, right after the war.
1:07:36 > 1:07:38It didn't cost her much.
1:07:49 > 1:07:52I think Peggy's great achievements in Venice
1:07:52 > 1:07:57all stemmed from lending her collection to the Biennale
1:07:57 > 1:08:00when it reopened after World War II in 1948.
1:08:00 > 1:08:04Douglas and I went to Venice at that time to pay a call on Peggy.
1:08:04 > 1:08:07Now, this was a very tricky call to pay,
1:08:07 > 1:08:12because Douglas had written about Peggy's loan of her collection
1:08:12 > 1:08:14and Douglas had ripped it apart
1:08:14 > 1:08:18and said this was typical of the bad taste of rich American women
1:08:18 > 1:08:20who didn't know what they were buying.
1:08:20 > 1:08:22But Peggy was very forgiving,
1:08:22 > 1:08:24so we were very warmly received.
1:08:25 > 1:08:29I think she helped bring international modern art to Venice,
1:08:29 > 1:08:32and this had an enormous effect
1:08:32 > 1:08:35on the future of the Biennale.
1:08:40 > 1:08:45There were always a tumble of dogs around her feet like thistledown,
1:08:45 > 1:08:48five or six of them whom she adored.
1:09:11 > 1:09:13You've had everybody here in your house.
1:09:13 > 1:09:16I mean, it's unbelievable.
1:09:16 > 1:09:18I like it when they draw something.
1:09:18 > 1:09:19Yes, so do I, much better.
1:09:19 > 1:09:21Steinberg.
1:09:21 > 1:09:22I love all the doggies.
1:09:22 > 1:09:23Aren't they wonderful?
1:09:37 > 1:09:39It was so enjoyable staying with Peggy,
1:09:39 > 1:09:41because all kinds of things went on.
1:09:41 > 1:09:45There were incidents, there were rows, there was fun.
1:09:45 > 1:09:48She enjoyed having a lot of gay guys around her
1:09:48 > 1:09:52because they were always looking for young guys,
1:09:52 > 1:09:55and she also was one of the gang in that respect.
1:09:55 > 1:09:58But the food was the worst in Venice.
1:09:58 > 1:10:01I mean, you know, lunch at Peggy's,
1:10:01 > 1:10:05it was bad pasta, the cheapest wine.
1:10:05 > 1:10:07I mean, really quite awful.
1:10:08 > 1:10:12So I don't think that food or drink really mattered to her.
1:10:12 > 1:10:16She was a gourmand of life, not of food.
1:10:16 > 1:10:18And the food was pretty terrible.
1:10:20 > 1:10:22Peggy was legendarily cheap.
1:10:22 > 1:10:27Sindbad once said she could make a can of sardines go very, very far,
1:10:27 > 1:10:30to which Peggy said, "Yes, especially if you don't open it."
1:10:31 > 1:10:33I think people have been hard on her in a way
1:10:33 > 1:10:35by saying that she was chintzy.
1:10:35 > 1:10:37She had to be chintzy because she had...
1:10:37 > 1:10:41She was infinitely ambitious when it came to buying paintings
1:10:41 > 1:10:44and living well and having a palazzo and all that,
1:10:44 > 1:10:45but on the other hand
1:10:45 > 1:10:47what was so touching about Peggy,
1:10:47 > 1:10:49at heart she was a little girl,
1:10:49 > 1:10:53and she had a little girl's enthusiasm about her possessions
1:10:53 > 1:10:54and wanting to show them.
1:10:55 > 1:10:58I don't think it goes with my hair.
1:11:01 > 1:11:04This is my bedroom, with the Calder bed.
1:11:05 > 1:11:07Peggy wants to replace this
1:11:07 > 1:11:09old brass bed she has
1:11:09 > 1:11:11with something genius,
1:11:11 > 1:11:14and she has this remarkable idea
1:11:14 > 1:11:17to ask my grandfather to make a headboard in hammered silver,
1:11:17 > 1:11:18like his beautiful jewellery.
1:11:20 > 1:11:21And he doesn't do it.
1:11:21 > 1:11:24And so she's after him all the time.
1:11:24 > 1:11:25One day I met him at a party
1:11:25 > 1:11:29and I said, "Sandy why haven't you made my bed?"
1:11:29 > 1:11:32Whereupon his wife looked extremely surprised,
1:11:32 > 1:11:34picked up her ears, and said, "What does that mean?"
1:11:36 > 1:11:39'So, finally, I got my bed.'
1:11:48 > 1:11:51There were constant triads for the role of lover.
1:11:51 > 1:11:53I mean, there were local boys.
1:11:54 > 1:11:56I remember when Nelly van Doesburg,
1:11:56 > 1:12:00the widow of van Doesburg the Dutch modernist painter, came to stay,
1:12:00 > 1:12:03and Peggy was adding on a few rooms to the palazzo.
1:12:03 > 1:12:06So there were a lot of rather good-looking
1:12:06 > 1:12:10young Italian stonemasons and plasterers around,
1:12:10 > 1:12:14and Nelly and Peggy both lusted after the same young plasterer.
1:12:14 > 1:12:19And there were terrible shrieks and rows and so on.
1:12:19 > 1:12:24I remember she would like to laugh about her Marino Marini statue
1:12:24 > 1:12:26in front of her palace, with the detachable penis
1:12:26 > 1:12:30which she would take off when the cardinal would visit her.
1:12:33 > 1:12:35Marino Marini explained to me
1:12:35 > 1:12:39that it was not at all a sexual symbol
1:12:39 > 1:12:42but simply the ecstasy of a young man
1:12:42 > 1:12:44in the joy of living.
1:12:48 > 1:12:50There's so few people single-handedly start out
1:12:50 > 1:12:51to make a museum.
1:12:51 > 1:12:55Yes. After trying all over the world I finally accomplished it here.
1:12:59 > 1:13:02Since 1951, we opened the museum,
1:13:02 > 1:13:05it's supposed to be the greatest attraction in Venice.
1:13:05 > 1:13:08Even before St Mark's, some people come here.
1:13:09 > 1:13:11One thing I remember clearly,
1:13:11 > 1:13:15when I was about 18 I hitchhiked all over Europe.
1:13:15 > 1:13:20When I got to Venice, I went to Peggy Guggenheim's palazzo
1:13:20 > 1:13:22where she had her museum.
1:13:22 > 1:13:25I knew my mother had a painting there,
1:13:25 > 1:13:28so I walked in and I looked to the right -
1:13:28 > 1:13:30the first thing I saw was hers.
1:13:32 > 1:13:34I introduced myself to Peggy and we talked.
1:13:34 > 1:13:37She was a big part of their lives.
1:13:37 > 1:13:38She was a patron of theirs.
1:13:40 > 1:13:44I didn't ask you when you started to help writers and artists out.
1:13:44 > 1:13:46I started with Djuna Barnes,
1:13:46 > 1:13:49and I've given an allowance to her ever since.
1:13:49 > 1:13:50- Still to this day?- Yes.
1:13:50 > 1:13:52I think, when you were beginning,
1:13:52 > 1:13:55there weren't things like there are now -
1:13:55 > 1:13:58- fellowships and scholarships... - No. No.- Nothing.
1:13:58 > 1:14:04- Nothing.- So what you were doing was very unusual and very needed.
1:14:24 > 1:14:28You seem to have given help and support to artists.
1:14:28 > 1:14:32Do you think that they have repaid you sufficiently well?
1:14:32 > 1:14:33I didn't expect to be repaid.
1:14:33 > 1:14:36I think the fact that they have created
1:14:36 > 1:14:39and given so much to humanity on the whole is enough.
1:14:39 > 1:14:42I didn't expect any personal thing in exchange.
1:14:42 > 1:14:44It's enough to enjoy their paintings.
1:14:46 > 1:14:48I think my father, Sindbad,
1:14:48 > 1:14:51had an intense relationship with his mother, Peggy.
1:14:51 > 1:14:54I think it was a love-hate relationship.
1:14:54 > 1:14:58Her life commitment happened to be her collection and not her children.
1:14:58 > 1:15:00I adored my father, Sindbad.
1:15:00 > 1:15:02He was quite a character.
1:15:02 > 1:15:04He was a very avid sportsman.
1:15:04 > 1:15:08I think it was his way of breaking away from the art world.
1:15:08 > 1:15:12He ended up working for an insurance company.
1:15:14 > 1:15:17My father never spoke about his sister Pegeen.
1:15:17 > 1:15:20I think it was a very sore subject,
1:15:20 > 1:15:22a very painful subject for him.
1:15:27 > 1:15:33I have kept this room as a memorial to Pegeen,
1:15:33 > 1:15:35with 13 or 14 of her paintings.
1:15:47 > 1:15:50People who knew her said there was something just vacant,
1:15:50 > 1:15:54something you knew was just not right with Pegeen.
1:15:54 > 1:15:57And Pegeen was very troublesome as a young woman,
1:15:57 > 1:16:02and was already having affairs at a very early age.
1:16:02 > 1:16:05Peggy was very intrusive in Pegeen's relationships.
1:16:05 > 1:16:08I think she expected Pegeen to be this beautiful love goddess
1:16:08 > 1:16:12who had many affairs and would go from man to man
1:16:12 > 1:16:15in a way that Peggy fantasised about.
1:16:17 > 1:16:19Though she loved her,
1:16:19 > 1:16:21she simply didn't know how to be a mother to Pegeen.
1:16:25 > 1:16:28She was always a very unhappy girl, and terribly neurotic.
1:16:47 > 1:16:50Pegeen was a tremendous problem in those days.
1:16:50 > 1:16:52I'll never forget Pegeen,
1:16:52 > 1:16:56we were all having dinner and Pegeen rushed in covered in blood,
1:16:56 > 1:16:59followed by a man in a white dinner jacket covered in blood.
1:16:59 > 1:17:02And she'd tried to commit suicide and he'd saved her,
1:17:02 > 1:17:04but they all seemed to be perfectly happy about this
1:17:04 > 1:17:07and they were kissing and making it up.
1:17:07 > 1:17:10It was a kind of regular occurrence, the suicide attempts.
1:17:10 > 1:17:13She told me she only felt safe on a plane,
1:17:13 > 1:17:15cos I suppose she hoped it would crash.
1:17:39 > 1:17:41I didn't often speak to her about Pegeen,
1:17:41 > 1:17:43because it was such a painful subject for her.
1:17:43 > 1:17:45But I did once ask her
1:17:45 > 1:17:49if she felt that she'd ever managed to get it right with Pegeen,
1:17:49 > 1:17:50and she said never.
1:17:50 > 1:17:52She said she'd tried everything.
1:17:52 > 1:17:55She tried to be soft, and to be hard, and to be strict,
1:17:55 > 1:17:57to be permissive,
1:17:57 > 1:17:58and to be generous,
1:17:58 > 1:18:00and to be controlling,
1:18:00 > 1:18:02and she said it just...
1:18:02 > 1:18:05She could never find the right way.
1:18:40 > 1:18:43With all the difficulties in her life,
1:18:43 > 1:18:45her personal problems,
1:18:45 > 1:18:47her family problems,
1:18:47 > 1:18:51was the art finally compensation enough for all that?
1:18:52 > 1:18:55What do these pictures mean to you yourself?
1:18:55 > 1:18:58Well, they've become more or less the most important part of my life.
1:18:58 > 1:19:01I can't imagine now living without them.
1:19:07 > 1:19:09I had my revenge later on, of course,
1:19:09 > 1:19:11when I had my show at the Orangerie in Paris,
1:19:11 > 1:19:13which is part of the Louvre,
1:19:13 > 1:19:17and I was very happy that I was recognised.
1:19:19 > 1:19:23She had the enormous pleasure of going there
1:19:23 > 1:19:25and mentioning in her speech
1:19:25 > 1:19:30that her pictures had not been worth saving before the war
1:19:30 > 1:19:32but now they were worth showing.
1:19:32 > 1:19:34And I think that was lovely.
1:19:41 > 1:19:44I was in Venice, it was my first Biennale.
1:19:44 > 1:19:46I think I was 23 years old
1:19:46 > 1:19:50and I was invited to come and see the collection.
1:19:52 > 1:19:54As a young gallery owner,
1:19:54 > 1:19:57Peggy Guggenheim was a mythic person.
1:19:57 > 1:20:01There's a lovely thing about helping young people.
1:20:01 > 1:20:05She discovered extraordinary artists and nurtured them,
1:20:05 > 1:20:07some of the great artists of our time,
1:20:07 > 1:20:10but it wasn't about money,
1:20:10 > 1:20:13it was just about art.
1:20:23 > 1:20:26This, of course, is a Pollock
1:20:26 > 1:20:29of that period when Art Of This Century was at its height
1:20:29 > 1:20:31and we were all seeing him for the first time.
1:20:31 > 1:20:34In those days, what were Pollocks selling for?
1:20:34 > 1:20:36Well, nothing at all.
1:20:36 > 1:20:38A few hundred dollars, maybe...
1:20:38 > 1:20:42Maybe 600 for one this size
1:20:42 > 1:20:44would have been already a very good price.
1:20:45 > 1:20:47It must make you very proud.
1:20:47 > 1:20:48No, I think it's completely insane
1:20:48 > 1:20:50the way it's gone up in value.
1:20:50 > 1:20:51Museum directors used to come and tell me
1:20:51 > 1:20:54this picture's worth so much and that picture's worth so much
1:20:54 > 1:20:57I nearly had a fit - I thought of what a responsibility it was
1:20:57 > 1:20:58having these expensive pictures,
1:20:58 > 1:21:00I didn't like it at all.
1:21:00 > 1:21:02Some of these prices are subjective
1:21:02 > 1:21:03because they're so rare.
1:21:03 > 1:21:05You know, there might be a number of opinions
1:21:05 > 1:21:07as to what they are worth.
1:21:07 > 1:21:10You're talking billions - billions of dollars. Billions.
1:21:22 > 1:21:25She was being courted at the end of her life
1:21:25 > 1:21:28by a number of institutions who wanted the collection.
1:21:29 > 1:21:32Her one requirement was that the collection stay in Venice.
1:21:32 > 1:21:35I don't think she had the resources to endow it
1:21:35 > 1:21:38so, luckily, she had a rich uncle.
1:21:38 > 1:21:42When I went to New York to have the exhibition in '69
1:21:42 > 1:21:46it was like proposing to somebody who was dying to marry me.
1:22:03 > 1:22:04And how do you feel
1:22:04 > 1:22:06about walking down the ramp at the Guggenheim Museum
1:22:06 > 1:22:09and seeing your paintings in a completely different environment?
1:22:09 > 1:22:11Oh, my uncle's garage, yes!
1:22:11 > 1:22:13It looks like a garage, doesn't it?
1:22:13 > 1:22:16I mean, all that circular business
1:22:16 > 1:22:18is the way garages are built in Europe.
1:22:19 > 1:22:22On circular ramps.
1:22:22 > 1:22:24Nice to have an uncle with a garage like that!
1:22:26 > 1:22:30I never was on very good terms with my uncle, Mr Solomon.
1:22:32 > 1:22:35I think if he saw this now he'd turn in his grave.
1:22:42 > 1:22:45By making the agreement that her collection
1:22:45 > 1:22:49would be part of the foundation created by her uncle,
1:22:49 > 1:22:51that was an extraordinary step,
1:22:51 > 1:22:52it was the first step
1:22:52 > 1:22:55where you had a major cultural institution
1:22:55 > 1:22:58that was spread over continents.
1:22:58 > 1:23:02But it also had a huge influence on the development of Venice itself.
1:23:02 > 1:23:07Venice is now viewed as, of course, the city of history,
1:23:07 > 1:23:10but also very much the city of contemporary art.
1:23:11 > 1:23:15She was smart because, by keeping it there,
1:23:15 > 1:23:19it really ensured that her personal presence
1:23:19 > 1:23:20was always going to be felt.
1:23:22 > 1:23:24And I think that that's the most important aspect
1:23:24 > 1:23:27about going in to that museum today, is that you feel her.
1:23:39 > 1:23:41If you only have three museums you can visit,
1:23:41 > 1:23:43this would definitely be one.
1:23:43 > 1:23:44It's like a pilgrimage.
1:23:44 > 1:23:49It's everything 20th century is about, should be about.
1:23:52 > 1:23:55It's just this incredible personal journey.
1:23:55 > 1:23:57It's about an opinion,
1:23:57 > 1:24:00it's about a taste, it's about a choice.
1:24:00 > 1:24:04All these things that most museums are not about.
1:24:04 > 1:24:07To me, it's her biggest contribution to history.
1:24:13 > 1:24:16She was collecting because she was really attracted to this art.
1:24:16 > 1:24:19She found something of herself in it.
1:24:19 > 1:24:22She had tremendous courage, she had the courage of her conviction.
1:24:22 > 1:24:24She was ready to take a risk
1:24:24 > 1:24:27and she also understood intuitively
1:24:27 > 1:24:30its art-historical significance.
1:24:32 > 1:24:35Looking at Peggy Guggenheim and what she accomplished,
1:24:35 > 1:24:37my biggest takeaway
1:24:37 > 1:24:40is just hold on to the art.
1:24:41 > 1:24:44Great art is eternal,
1:24:44 > 1:24:48and if you can attach yourself to it in the right way -
1:24:48 > 1:24:52and she certainly did it in the right way -
1:24:52 > 1:24:55you kind of gain a certain immortality.
1:25:13 > 1:25:16Everything used to be much more fun than it is nowadays.
1:25:38 > 1:25:40I can't be jealous of the past.
1:25:41 > 1:25:43Or know the future.
1:25:47 > 1:25:49It's horrible to get old.
1:25:50 > 1:25:53It's one of worst things that can happen to you.
1:25:54 > 1:25:57I really felt I'd accomplished what I wanted to do,
1:25:57 > 1:26:01and I've done it very successfully and I'm very happy about that.