Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Timeline
1929
Solomon R. Guggenheim establishes his modern art collection
At age 66, the wealthy American industrialist Solomon R. Guggenheim begins to form a large collection of important modern paintings by artists such as Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Marc Chagall. He is guided in this pursuit by a German artist and theorist, Baroness Hilla Rebay von Ehrenwiesen. Rebay introduces Guggenheim to Kandinsky in his Dessau studio and Guggenheim purchases several paintings and works on paper. He eventually acquires more than 150 works by this seminal artist, as well as paintings by Rudolf Bauer, Robert Delaunay, and László Moholy-Nagy.
1930s
Solomon R. Guggenheim’s first public exhibitions are held at the Plaza Hotel
Solomon R. Guggenheim’s growing collection is installed in his private apartment at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Small exhibitions of newly acquired works are held there intermittently for the public. Hilla Rebay organizes a landmark loan exhibition entitled Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection of Non-Objective Paintings, which travels to Charleston, South Carolina; Philadelphia; and Baltimore.
1942
Peggy Guggenheim opens Art of This Century gallery in New York City
Peggy Guggenheim opens Art of This Century, a unique gallery-museum on 57th Street in New York, designed by Frederick Kiesler. The inaugural installation features her own collection displayed in unconventional ways. Over the next five years, Peggy provides critical support to the nascent American school of Abstract Expressionism and mounts important exhibitions devoted to European and American artists such as Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.
1952
James Johnson Sweeney succeeds Hilla Rebay as director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Hilla Rebay resigns and is replaced as director by James Johnson Sweeney. The name of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting is changed to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to distinguish it as a memorial to its founder, who died in 1949, and to signify a shift toward a broader view of modern and contemporary art. Under Sweeney, the Guggenheim purchases several sculptures by Constantin Brancusi and other important artists whose work does not fall within the category of non-objective art.
1961
Thomas M. Messer is appointed director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
One year after the resignation of James Johnson Sweeney, Thomas M. Messer is appointed as director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Messer serves as director of the museum from 1961 to 1988, and as director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation from 1980 to 1988. During his tenure, he greatly expands the collection and establishes the Guggenheim Museum as a world-class institution in the realms of art scholarship and special exhibitions.
1979
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation begins overseeing the Venice palazzo
Peggy dies in 1979, and the foundation takes possession of the palazzo, which she had donated to the foundation in 1970. Thomas M. Messer is appointed director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in addition to his role overseeing the New York museum. He also supervises a major effort to conserve and document the Venice holdings.
1980
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection opens to the public in Venice
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection opens to the public year-round for the first time, and mounts its first temporary exhibitions. Over the next few years, all of the rooms on the main floor of the palazzo are converted into galleries; the white Istrian stone facade and its unique canal terrace are restored; the barchessa is rebuilt and enclosed; and the garden is landscaped by the Venetian architect Giorgio Bellavitis.
1997
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opens
Instantly hailed as an architectural masterpiece, Frank Gehry’s titanium and steel structure becomes the first work of museum architecture to rival the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright building in its achievement and influence. The New York Timescalls it “the most important building yet completed” by Gehry. His use of cutting-edge computer-aided design technology enables an architecture that is sculptural and expressionistic, with spaces unlike any others for the presentation of art.
The museum is seamlessly integrated into the urban context, unfolding its interconnecting shapes of stone, glass, and titanium on a 350,000-square-foot site along the Nervión River in the old industrial heart of Bilbao. The exhibition space is distributed over nineteen galleries, ten of which have a classic orthogonal plan and can be identified from the exterior by their stone finishes. Nine other irregularly shaped galleries present a remarkable contrast and can be identified from the outside by their swirling forms and titanium cladding.
1997
The Deutsche Guggenheim opens in Berlin
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Deutsche Bank form a unique partnership to open the Richard Gluckman-designed Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin on Unter Den Linden. Each year the museum mounts one show from Deutsche Bank’s extensive art collection and three Guggenheim-organized exhibitions drawn from both the foundation’s collection and international loans.
The Deutsche Guggenheim’s commissions charge contemporary artists—including William Kentridge, Jeff Koons, James Rosenquist, Phoebe Washburn, and Rachel Whiteread—with creating artworks or series that then debut in exhibitions organized in collaboration with Guggenheim Museum curators. When the Deutsche Guggenheim comes to a close in 2013, it reinvents itself as Deutsche Bank KunstHalle. Deutsche Bank and the Guggenheim continue to maintain a valued relationship and deep interest in Berlin as a site of artistic and intellectual activity.
2001
The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum and the Guggenheim Las Vegas open
The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum and Guggenheim Las Vegas open at the Venetian Resort, Las Vegas. The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum presents exhibitions drawn from the collections of the Guggenheim and the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, while the Guggenheim Las Vegas hosts special exhibitions. Despite attracting more than a million visitors, the Guggenheim Las Vegas closes in 2003. The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum closes in 2008.
2006
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Launches the Asian Art Initiative
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum becomes the first modern art museum in the West to hire a senior curator of Asian art. Subsequently, it also develops the Asian Art Initiative. Both projects are aimed at promoting a transnational understanding of Asian art history. The Asian Art Council, comprised of artists, academics, critics, and curators, guides the initiative’s development in an international context.
2009
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary
The Guggenheim celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Frank Lloyd Wright building. To mark the occasion, the museum presents a series of special exhibitions and produces publications and an online chronology about the creation of the building.
2010
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation collaborates with YouTube for a juried exhibition of videos
The Guggenheim and YouTube, in collaboration with HP and Intel, launches YouTube: Play. Curators vet more than 23,000 submissions to the exhibition, compiling a shortlist of 125 from which a jury picks 25. The videos and artists are celebrated at an event at the Guggenheim in New York on October 21, 2010, and the works are shown at the Guggenheim Museums in New York, Bilbao, Berlin, and Venice from October 22 to 24, 2010.