Venue:
Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

Curators:
Benjamin Hélion, Benjamin Lanot and Philip Rylands.

Artists:
Pegeen Vail Guggenheim and Egidio Costantini.

Exhibition description:
This small exhibition ran in sync with the release of the first illustrated biography of Pegeen Vail Guggenheim’s life. Her work, which can be described as both naïf and surrealist, borrows from some of the principal artistic movements of the Twentieth Century. This show exhibits five of her paintings, produced during the period ranging from 1945–1960, as well as two glass sculpture from 1966, created by Egidio Costantini, who ‘translated’ her drawings into glass sculptures. Pegeen came into contact with many influential artists via her mother’s galleries. For example in 1938, aged twelve, she exchanged work with the Surrealist painter Yves Tanguy. Pegeen’s artistic career began early, exhibiting at both the Guggenheim Jeune (1938–39) in London and Peggy’s New York Gallery, Art of This Century (1942–1947). In 1946 she held her first solo show at Art of This Century, showing oil paintings, drawings, and gouaches that depicted scenes populated with doll-like figures, rendered in a naïf style. This style of painting is the predominant focus of the work exhibited here. In the winter of 1966 Pegeen held several exhibitions in Canada, Stockholm and Philadelphia. On the brink of success, her depression led her to medicine abuse, which ultimately proved fatal in Paris on March 1, 1967.

Related Publication:
Hélion, Benjamin and Lanot, Benjamin. Pegeen Vail Guggenheim: A Life Through Art. Paris: Sisso editions, 2010. (Available in French, English, and Italian).

Library Location: UFFICIO 2010.