Peggy Guggenheim

The Shock of the Modern

De: Francine Prose

Narrado por: Carrington MacDuffie

A spirited portrait of the colorful, irrepressible, and iconoclastic American collector who fearlessly advanced the cause of modern art.

One of 20th-century America's most influential patrons of the arts, Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) brought to wide public attention the work of such modern masters as Jackson Pollock and Man Ray. In her time there was no stronger advocate for the groundbreaking and the avant-garde. Her midtown gallery was the acknowledged center of the postwar New York art scene, and her museum on the Grand Canal in Venice remains one of the world's great collections of modern art. Yet as renowned as she was for the art and artists she so tirelessly championed, Guggenheim was equally famous for her unconventional personal life and for her ironic, playful desire to shock.

Acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose offers a listen of Guggenheim's life that will enthrall enthusiasts of 21st-century art as well as anyone interested in American and European culture and the interrelationships between them. The lively and insightful narrative follows Guggenheim through virtually every aspect of her extraordinary life, from her unique collecting habits and paradigm-changing discoveries to her celebrity friendships, failed marriages, and scandalous affairs. Prose delivers a colorful portrait of a defiantly uncompromising woman who maintained a powerful upper hand in a male-dominated world. She also explores the ways in which Guggenheim's image was filtered through the lens of insidious anti-Semitism.

©2015 Francine Prose (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

An interesting story told well

I found this biography interesting without being lost in too much detail. A fascinating life with probably oversized influence. The biographer tries to be fair to Peggy, who has received a lot of bad press during and after her life.

Could’ve been so good

Although this is a wonderful story about an incredible woman, it certainly would’ve improved if the narrator had known how to pronounce proper languages and had more of an engaging wilt to her voice.

Great book

The narrator mispronounced too many French words. Really annoying. Can’t they train people to pronounce foreign words ?The book is excellent.

A little dry

I tend to bypass biographies for memoirs. As a typical biography, the book was full of names and details. Somewhat difficult to keep track of everything. I do enjoy art. I have been to Venice, but visited the academia and not Peggy’s museum. Interesting book, but maybe not so many names.

A sketch from a distance

Quite a character, Peggy Guggenheim was. After inheriting a fortune from her father Benjamin, who tragically died on the Titanic, she became one of the world's greatest collectors of Modernist art, with special focus on surrealism and abstract expressionism. Her collection remains in Venice, where she spent her later decades.

This biography presents her as an adventurous art lover, unafraid of navigating Nazi Europe in search of treasure, despite being Jewish. She had sophisticated tastes, but was driven by her carnal passions. The book doesn't shy away from her obsession with sex and numerous affairs, including with artists like Max Ernst, whom she married briefly. Many of the most renowned artists of the time make an appearance in this book. Her complete devotion to art circles may have negatively impacted her family life, particularly her relationship with her daughter, Pegeen.

I enjoyed listening to this well-narrated audiobook, but it felt to me like an outsider’s view of Guggenheim. I would have liked a closer, more intimate understanding of who she was.