At the time of her death on December 23, 1979, Peggy Guggenheim had already donated her modern art collection and Palazzo Venier dei Leoni to the Foundation established in New York by her uncle Solomon—a process that lasted seven years and was completed in 1976. Every summer from 1951 to 1979, the patroness opened her house-museum to the public. Desiring to carry on this tradition, the Foundation’s first objective after Peggy’s death was to reopen the palazzo, which it did in April 1980. That winter, work began on the restoration and conversion of her home into a museum—a project that lasted roughly a decade. The first undertaking was a renovation of the building’s monumental façade, made possible with the support of the Legge Speciale per Venezia, administered by former Vice-mayor Gianni Pellicani, and funded by several Italian banks headed by Banca d’Italia and ABI, then directed by Felice Gianani. Next came the reconstruction of the “barchessa”, following the original plan by Vincenzo Passaro, who conceived the space in 1957. With the help of Ippolito Massari and Paul Schwartzbaum—who also subsequently assisted in the installation of a climate control system financed by Ovidio Jacorossi—the art deposit was completely waterproofed. Other major projects included Giorgio Bellavitis’s redesign of garden; the creation of a library and conference room, made possible by 3M and Arclinea; and, in 1990, the restoration of the museum’s roof-terrace funded by the Consorzio San Marco.
From the beginning, the museum’s cultural and educational programs enjoyed generous support from the Regione del Veneto and its then president Carlo Bernini, as well as from the Advisory Board of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. This has continued to the present day, with the Regional presidency of Giancarlo Galan and an Advisory Board numbering over 70 persons. I particularly remember Venetian members of the Board who in 1980 confirmed their belief in the future of the museum: Enrico and Fiorella Chiari, and Danielle Luzzatto Gardner, wife of the former American Ambassador. In 1985 the museum was at last opened to the public year-round, at the same inaugurating its program of temporary exhibitions with a show of etchings of the Tauromachia etchings by Goya and Picasso, loaned by the American collector and philanthropist Arthur Ross. Since 1992, the museum’s exhibition programs have been supported by Intrapresæ Collezione Guggenheim, a corporate membership created for the museum by Michela Bondardo.
While the 1980s saw the museum’s conversion and restoration, the 1990s witnessed its expansion. Under the guidance of architect Clemente di Thiene (and more recently Giacomo di Thiene) the museum has come to occupy the very footprint that Palazzo Venier dei Leoni would have covered had it ever been finished (as shown in the model exhibited at the Museo Correr). This project was made possible by the Fondazione Ugo and Olga Levi (under its presidents Gianni Milner and Davide Croff, and director Giorgio Busetto), which owns the apartment and storage complex overlooking Rio delle Torreselle, behind the museum’s garden. One floor of each of the buildings were converted into exhibition galleries for temporary exhibitions, allowing the permanent collection to remain on view year-round. Two museum shops, offices, storage space, and a series of sculpture gardens were also added. In 2001 a fundraising campaign, chaired by William and Posy Feick and Benjamin Rauch of the Advisory Board, made possible the acquisition of a private property at 704 Dorsoduro, which opened in 2003 as the museum’s main entrance. In 2007 the museum began a series of improvements to meet public access and handicap regulations. In 2009, thanks to Giorgio and Adriana Squinzi, the Mapei company funded the restoration of the museum’s street and canal-side façades.
Throughout the years, the museum’s cultural mission has always been its main focus. In 1985 Angelica Rudenstine compiled a comprehensive catalogue of the collection, while Sergio Angelucci and Paul Schwartzbaum carried out conservation maintenance. Over the past 30 years Palazzo Venier dei Leoni has been transformed from a private house to a public museum. The historical façade has been restored, and the museum expanded, doubling its exhibition galleries. Since 1985 it has organized more than 80 temporary exhibitions, beginning with etchings of the bullfight by Goya and Picasso, and ranging from Boccioni to Brancusi, Giacometti, Ernst, Gorky, Pollock, Medardo Rosso, and Fontana. The program has included old master drawings from the Albertina and from the Krugier-Poniatowska collections, as well as contemporary art from the Panza Collection or by Barney and Beuys. The gift in 1984 by Enrico and Fiorella Chiari of Pierre Alechinsky’s Aztec Volcano was the first of more than 80 works of art to be donated to the museum by as many donors since Peggy Guggenheim ‘s death—such as works by Pousette-Dart, Grosz, Josef and Anni Albers, Baziotes, Hunt, Holzer, and Richier, and by Italian artists such as Scialoja, Accardi, Lazzari, Fontana, Bacci, Paladino, Merz, Novelli, Mirko, Santomaso, Pizzinato, Vedova and Bonalumi, climaxing in 2008 with The Cyclist by Mario Sironi, a gift from Giovanni Pandini and the first painting by this major Italian painter to enter the Guggenheim Foundation’s collections. Since 1997 the presence on deposit of the Gianni Mattioli Collection has also rendered the Peggy Guggenheim Collection a destination for Italian Futurism and the early paintings of Giorgio Morandi.
In 2004 the innovative project “A Scuola di Guggenheim” was inaugurated, with funding by the Regione del Veneto. For the first time in Italy teachers were directly involved in a museum’s educational activities. |
