SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

Description

Essentials about the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in brief

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum should be on your bucket list when visiting New York City. Mostly referred to as “The Guggenheim” for short, the museum not only houses one of the world’s most famous collections of modern and abstract art, but is also one of Manhattan’s architectural highlights. Located on Fifth Avenue on the eastern edge of Central Park, the building’s distinctive shape has made it a bone of contention between supporters and opponents to this day. Derided by some as a “concrete cup” or “snail shell,” others see it as the most beautiful building in New York City. Whatever your opinion of the building, what awaits you inside the Guggenheim should convince even philistines to visit.

The history of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Historically, the museum dates back to Solomon R. Guggenheim, a member of the industrialist Guggenheim family, who began building a collection of avant-garde modern art in the late 1930s. He was advised on the purchase by the young German artist Hilla von Rebay, who introduced him to this art. In the early 1930s, Solomon R. Guggenheim displayed the growing collection in his apartment in New York’s Savoy-Plaza Hotel and presented new acquisitions to the public in small exhibitions. Under Rebay’s organization, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection of Non-Objective Paintings was created, which went on an exhibition tour through various American cities.

In 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was established, which received permission from the State of New York to operate one or more museums. In 1939, the Foundation established a small Museum of Non-Objective Painting in a converted old car dealership on 24th East Street to exhibit the Solomon R. Guggenheim collection. The museum’s first director was Hilla von Rebay.

In 1943, Solomon R. Guggenheim and Hilla von Rebay commissioned the renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new museum building at the present site. Wright made over 700 sketches for the building, which, as a result of World War II and disputes with the building authorities, was not realized until between 1956 and 1959. The new museum building finally opened on October 21, 1959. Neither Solomon R. Guggenheim, who died in 1949, nor Frank Lloyd Wright, who died in early 1959, lived to see the opening of “their” museum. In memory of its founder, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting was renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. From the 1960s to the 1980s, under its curator Thomas M. Messer, the Guggenheim Museum developed into a world-class institution, due both to the considerable expansion of its collection and to its world-renowned special exhibitions.

The building of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The building, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, has the basic shape of a rotunda. The circle is the main motif of the floor plan and the terraced floors. Overall, the museum combines various geometric shapes such as triangles, circles, ovals, arches and squares. In addition to the main building, there is also a small rotunda that once housed Guggenheim and Rebay’s apartments and is now used as an office building. With the expansion of the museum in the early 1990s, a tower formerly planned by Wright was realized.

The building’s architecture is significantly influenced by its location near Central Park. Nature not only provides a haven of peace from the hustle and bustle of New York City, but also offered inspiration for Wright’s design. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, for example, is an attempt to translate the plasticity of organic structures into architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright created a winding ramp with a three percent slope along which the artworks are displayed, as opposed to the concepts normally represented in museums, in which the visitor is led through various interconnected spaces.

Wright’s concept includes an elevator that transports visitors to the highest point of the ramp so they can walk down past the artworks. The galleries are divided into different sections, which is modeled on the chamber division of a citrus fruit in terms of structure. The rotunda is open to the inside, allowing visitors to view artworks from several segments and floors from different angles. To strengthen the effect of the paintings in the space, bright fluorescent lamps were installed to cancel out the sunlight, creating such a background light that the paintings take on a special lightness.

Even in the run-up to the construction, during the planning phase, the project was repeatedly criticized. Artists in particular were among the biggest critics. They rejected the museum’s architecture, arguing that it stole the show from the paintings. For example, the art critic John Canaday said in the New York Times “A war between architecture and painting, in which both come out badly maimed” and the New York Daily Mirror wrote “A building that should be put in a museum to show how mad the 20th Century is”.

In addition to much criticism, however, the museum building also received positive feedback. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is considered the most important building from Frank Lloyd Wright’s last years. Thus, architect Philip Johnson said “Mr. Wright’s greatest building, New York’s greatest building. One of the greatest rooms of the 20th century”. Due to its architectural significance, the museum building was therefore nominated for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2015.

The collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is one of the most important and interesting of modern and avant-garde art in the world. It includes several different parts of the collection, which have been gathered over time. The foundation consists of Solomon R. Guggenheim’s collection, which initially focused heavily on abstract painting. During this period, Guggenheim acquired key works by Wassily Kandinsky. In addition, he also bought art that could not be described as non-objective, such as works by Marc Chagall.

The collection grew by a considerable 730 objects with the acquisition of the estate of the art dealer Karl Nierendorf in 1948. Among them were 110 works by Paul Klee, 24 by Lyonel Feininger, 18 Kandinskys, six Chagalls, two paintings by Joan Miró and one by Oskar Kokoschka. Thus, the collection contains significant works of expressionism and surrealism.

Also part of the collection since the 1950s are sculptures by sculptors such as Constantin Brâncuși, Alexander Calder, David Smith and Jean Arp. In addition, the acquisition of the 1899 painting Man with Folded Arms by Paul Cézanne overturned the principle of including only 20th-century works in the collection. In 1963, the Thannhauser Collection added Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works to the collection. It first came to the museum on loan, but then passed into the possession of the Guggenheim Foundation as a legacy. Among them are famous works such as Hills near Saint-Rémy by Vincent van Gogh, Haere Mai by Paul Gauguin, Before the Mirror by Édouard Manet, and Hill Landscape near Pontoise by Camille Pissarro. Also from the Thannhauser Collection are 32 paintings and works on paper by Pablo Picasso such as Le Moulin de la Galette and Woman with Yellow Hair. Having already owned some works from Picasso’s analytical-cubist and thus abstract phase, such as The Accordion Player, the museum is now in possession of one of the largest public collections of Picasso’s works after the additions with the Thannhauser Collection.

In the early 1990s, the Panza Collection added works from the 1960s and 1970s to the collection, focusing on abstract painting and sculpture. It included minimalist sculptures by sculptors such as Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, and Carl Andre, as well as minimalist paintings by artists such as Brice Marden, Robert Ryman, and Robert Mangold. In addition, the Panza Collection included works of postminimalism and conceptual art by artists such as Richard Serra, James Turrell, and Robert Morris. In addition, the collection’s holdings of works doubled in the 1990s, as photographs and media art were now added to the collection’s areas of interest. For example, 200 photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe are part of the collection.

The café and museum shop of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

If so much great art makes you hungry or thirsty, there is a café on the third floor of the museum, from which you can also enjoy a magnificent view of Central Park. And the Guggenheim’s museum store is also worth a mention, having won multiple awards as New York City’s best museum store (and that’s no small honor). In addition to rare, informative art books and creative gift ideas, you can also purchase great photo prints of the artwork on display at the museum.