Peggy's lifestyle probably defines "artistic impulse." After she moved to Venice in 1949 she scandalized locals by sunbathing on her roof, and wasn't above tossing a Giacometti plaster in the back of her car to tote to the bronze casters. She slept in a bed with a silver Calder headboard, hung her earring collection by major artists on the wall, buried her lap dogs in the yard, dined below a major Picasso, and if all the great art that she gave away or sold had remained in her hands, her museum would approach Academia size and be far too much to visit in a week.
Today, "Peggy's Place" , now run as part of the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation with other wonderful museum in Bilbao, Spain and New York City, is best visited by gondola down the Grand Canal past the Salute and entered past the "erect" horseman's statue in the courtyard. Through a window on the right Brancusi's "Bird in Space" waits in front of a wonderful Miro'. Enjoy that, and then dabble with Dali' and other greats in the small galleries to the right. Then squint so you can't see clearly and head towards the back of the glass-walled room where Peggy dined. Open your eyes and feast on the Giacometti plaster inside, the small pieces by Moore and others, and the sculpture outside to be visited later. Turn, and Picasso's "Le Poète" shows why his best works still stun.
On the Salute side of the entrance hall it's time for Pollock and Calder and all the other artists Peggy Guggenheim knew, loved and supported. Consider the case of modern art in Europe under Hitler. Think for a bit how she kept a generation or even two of great artists going. Then it's past time to go out into the courtyard to visit her grave, where, surrounded by the graves of the small dogs that doubtless returned her affections more consistently than the "large artists," she rests.
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