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The metamorphosis from private collection to public
museum is an
extraordinary transition. For the Guggenheim, this
occurred in 1937, when
Solomon R. Guggenheim established a foundation
empowered to operate a
museum that would publicly exhibit and preserve his
holdings of
non-objective art. Today, the Guggenheim is a museum
in multiple locations with
access to shared collections, common constituencies,
and joint
programming. Nevertheless, it is the permanent
collection that constitutes the
very core of the institution, no matter how
far-reaching its activities
may be. The story of the Guggenheim Museum is
essentially the story of
six very different private collections—Solomon R.
Guggenheim's
collection of non-objective painting premised on a
belief in the spiritual
dimensions of pure abstraction; his niece Peggy
Guggenheim's collection of
Surrealist and abstract painting and sculpture; Justin
K. Thannhauser's
array of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and early
Modern
masterpieces; Karl Nierendorf's holdings in German
Expressionism; Katherine S.
Dreier's paintings and sculptures of the historic
avant-garde; and Dr.
Giuseppe Panza di Biumo's vast holdings of European
and American
Minimalist, Post-Minimalist, Environmental, and
Conceptual art—that have been
augmented through the years by the museum's directors
and curators to
form one richly layered collection dating from the
late 19th-century to
the present. Unlike most institutions dedicated to the
visual arts, the
Guggenheim does not divide itself into departments
devoted to specific
mediums or eras. Rather, the collection is conceived
as an integrated
whole that may be continuously enhanced in response to
emerging talent
as well as a mandate to fill in critical historical
gaps.
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