The Art of This Century Gallery
Encyclopedia
The Art of This Century gallery was opened by Peggy Guggenheim
at 30 W. 57th Street in New York City on October 20, 1942. The gallery occupied two commercial spaces on the seventh floor of a building that was part of the midtown arts district including the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Non-objective Painting, Helena Rubinstein's New Art Center, and numerous commercial galleries. The gallery exhibited important contemporary art until it closed in 1947, when Guggenheim returned to Europe. The gallery was designed by architect, artist, and visionary Frederick Kiesler.
, and also exhibited the works of lesser known American artists, often for the first time. The space became both a meeting place and exhibition nexus for exiled European artists and young emerging Americans and as such was one of the major crucibles for the emergence of the New York School.
The European artists that were exhibited at the Art of This Century Gallery included Jean Arp
, Georges Braque
, Giorgio de Chirico
, Salvador Dalí
, Max Ernst
, Alberto Giacometti
, Wassily Kandinsky
, Fernand Léger
, André Masson
, Roberto Matta
, Joan Miró
, Pablo Picasso
and Yves Tanguy
.
The American artists shown at the gallery included William Baziotes
, Alexander Calder
, Joseph Cornell
, David Hare
, Hans Hofmann
, Gerome Kamrowski
, Willem de Kooning
, Robert Motherwell
, Jackson Pollock
, Richard Pousette-Dart
, Ad Reinhardt
, Mark Rothko
, Charles Seliger
, Clyfford Still
, and Robert De Niro, Sr.
.
and artist Marcel Duchamp
. The Daylight Gallery was used for the fifty-three temporary exhibitions featuring the work of one-hundred-and-three artists that took place from the winter of 1942 to the summer of 1947.
Abstract Gallery
The Abstract Gallery was the entrance space featuring undulating walls of ultramarine canvas and a Thalo-blue-painted floor. All of the paintings were suspended within the room from either diamond-shaped or inverted-pyramid rope modules or from parallel or V-shaped straps. Some sculptures were also suspended midair within these modules. As in all the gallery spaces, Frederick Kiesler's Correalist furniture units also served as easels for paintings and pedestals for sculpture.
Surrealist Gallery
One of the most-recognized and reproduced exhibition spaces of the twentieth century, the Surrealist Gallery was Frederick Kiesler's design masterpiece. Within the long black-painted room, hanging curvilinear wall units displayed all the Surrealist works jutting out toward the viewer on adjustable arms. As originally presented, spotlights illuminated the paintings individually in a random electrically controlled sequence. At times the gallery was plunged into complete darkness accompanied by the ominous sound of an oncoming train.
Kinetic Gallery
The Kinetic Gallery was a darkened hall-like space often likened to a carnival funhouse. Viewers were invited to interact with the displays. A biomorphic spiral-shaped ship's wheel rotated the content's of Marcel Duchamp's "Box in a Valise" where the components were viewed through a peephole. Activated by an invisible electric light beam, a paternoster display (resembling a mechanical ferris wheel) rotated small works by Paul Klee in front of the viewer.
Daylight Gallery
The Daylight Gallery—so-called because the two front rooms faced picture windows on 57th Street—was a normal rectilinear gallery with white walls. All of Guggenheim's temporary exhibitions took place here, including the New York debuts of William Baziotes, Robert de Niro (Sr.), David Hare, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Charles Seliger and important early exhibitions of Richard Pousette-Dart, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. This space also contained Kiesler's mobile Painting Libraries, wheeled easel units with projecting glass rods which allowed viewer's to study works while seated on Correalist Instruments.
(AAA) was established in 1935. Many of its members left New York in 1942 during World War II, to join the US Armed Forces. During the war years there were few male vanguard American artists remaining in New York. Generally the only artists or critics who did not participate in World War II were those exempt from military service or conscientious objectors. These male artists along with a few female artists captured the few galleries who were willing to show their work along with European modernists. This group of artists was called the Uptown Group.
Barnett Newman
, a well-respected writer and critic who also organized exhibitions and wrote catalogs became only later a member of the Uptown Group.
Jackson Pollock
had his first solo show in 1943 at the Art of This Century Gallery, which provided him with a yearly stipend. He together with his wife the painter Lee Krasner
, left New York City in 1945 and moved to the Springs, East Hampton
, Long Island.
Clyfford Still
, a Californian who at the end of 1945 moved to New York, soon joined the Uptown Group and became associated with the prestigious uptown gallery: The Art of This Century.
Thomas Hess, managing director of Art News described the Uptown Group:
Guggenheim closed the doors of The Art of This Century Gallery in 1947. The representation of her artists was taken over by Betty Parsons
, an artist and a prominent New York socialite.
Peggy Guggenheim
Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector. Born to a wealthy New York City family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who would establish the Solomon R...
at 30 W. 57th Street in New York City on October 20, 1942. The gallery occupied two commercial spaces on the seventh floor of a building that was part of the midtown arts district including the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Non-objective Painting, Helena Rubinstein's New Art Center, and numerous commercial galleries. The gallery exhibited important contemporary art until it closed in 1947, when Guggenheim returned to Europe. The gallery was designed by architect, artist, and visionary Frederick Kiesler.
The gallery
The gallery showcased works by established European artists with an emphasis on SurrealismSurrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, and also exhibited the works of lesser known American artists, often for the first time. The space became both a meeting place and exhibition nexus for exiled European artists and young emerging Americans and as such was one of the major crucibles for the emergence of the New York School.
The European artists that were exhibited at the Art of This Century Gallery included Jean Arp
Jean Arp
Jean Arp / Hans Arp was a German-French, or Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper....
, Georges Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
, Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
, Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
, Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
, Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...
, Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
, Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
, André Masson
André Masson
André-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.-Biography:Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris...
, Roberto Matta
Roberto Matta
Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren , better known as Roberto Matta, was one of Chile's best-known painters and a seminal figure in 20th century abstract expressionist and surrealist art....
, Joan Miró
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
, Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
and Yves Tanguy
Yves Tanguy
Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy , known as Yves Tanguy, was a French surrealist painter.-Biography:Tanguy was born in Paris, France, the son of a retired navy captain. His parents were both of Breton origin...
.
The American artists shown at the gallery included William Baziotes
William Baziotes
William Baziotes was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism.-Life and career:...
, Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
, Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage...
, David Hare
David Hare (artist)
David Hare was an American artist, associated with the Surrealist movement. He is primarily known for his sculpture, though he also worked extensively in photography and painting.-Life and work:...
, Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
, Gerome Kamrowski
Gerome Kamrowski
Gerome Kamrowski was an American artist and participant in the Surrealist Movement in the United States.He was born in Warren, Minnesota and begun to study art in the early 1930s at the St...
, Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
, Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
, Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, Richard Pousette-Dart
Richard Pousette-Dart
Richard Pousette-Dart was an American Abstract Expressionist painter.-Biography:He was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota and grew up in Valhalla, New York. Although Richard never attended art school, his father, Nathaniel J. Pousette-Dart, was a painter and writer on art. He moved to Manhattan in 1937...
, Ad Reinhardt
Ad Reinhardt
Adolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
, Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
, Charles Seliger
Charles Seliger
Charles Seliger was an American abstract expressionist painter. He was born in Manhattan June 3, 1926, and he died on 1 October 2009, in Westchester County, New York...
, Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still was an American painter, and one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism.-Biography:...
, and Robert De Niro, Sr.
Robert De Niro, Sr.
Robert Henry De Niro, Sr. was an American abstract expressionist painter and the father of actor Robert De Niro.-Life and career:...
.
Gallery spaces
Art of This Century was divided into four distinct spaces: the Abstract Gallery, the Surrealist Gallery, the Kinetic Gallery, and the Daylight Gallery. The Abstract, Surrealist, the Kinetic Galleries showcased the permanent private collection which Peggy Guggenheim had amassed in Europe with the assistance of curator Herbert ReadHerbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
and artist Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
. The Daylight Gallery was used for the fifty-three temporary exhibitions featuring the work of one-hundred-and-three artists that took place from the winter of 1942 to the summer of 1947.
Abstract Gallery
The Abstract Gallery was the entrance space featuring undulating walls of ultramarine canvas and a Thalo-blue-painted floor. All of the paintings were suspended within the room from either diamond-shaped or inverted-pyramid rope modules or from parallel or V-shaped straps. Some sculptures were also suspended midair within these modules. As in all the gallery spaces, Frederick Kiesler's Correalist furniture units also served as easels for paintings and pedestals for sculpture.
Surrealist Gallery
One of the most-recognized and reproduced exhibition spaces of the twentieth century, the Surrealist Gallery was Frederick Kiesler's design masterpiece. Within the long black-painted room, hanging curvilinear wall units displayed all the Surrealist works jutting out toward the viewer on adjustable arms. As originally presented, spotlights illuminated the paintings individually in a random electrically controlled sequence. At times the gallery was plunged into complete darkness accompanied by the ominous sound of an oncoming train.
Kinetic Gallery
The Kinetic Gallery was a darkened hall-like space often likened to a carnival funhouse. Viewers were invited to interact with the displays. A biomorphic spiral-shaped ship's wheel rotated the content's of Marcel Duchamp's "Box in a Valise" where the components were viewed through a peephole. Activated by an invisible electric light beam, a paternoster display (resembling a mechanical ferris wheel) rotated small works by Paul Klee in front of the viewer.
Daylight Gallery
The Daylight Gallery—so-called because the two front rooms faced picture windows on 57th Street—was a normal rectilinear gallery with white walls. All of Guggenheim's temporary exhibitions took place here, including the New York debuts of William Baziotes, Robert de Niro (Sr.), David Hare, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Charles Seliger and important early exhibitions of Richard Pousette-Dart, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. This space also contained Kiesler's mobile Painting Libraries, wheeled easel units with projecting glass rods which allowed viewer's to study works while seated on Correalist Instruments.
New York avant-garde during World War II
Abstract Art was not new to the New York artists. The group called The American Abstract ArtistsAmerican Abstract Artists
American Abstract Artists was formed in 1936 in New York City, to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. American Abstract Artists exhibitions, publications, and lectures helped to establish the organization as a major forum for the exchange and discussion of ideas, and for...
(AAA) was established in 1935. Many of its members left New York in 1942 during World War II, to join the US Armed Forces. During the war years there were few male vanguard American artists remaining in New York. Generally the only artists or critics who did not participate in World War II were those exempt from military service or conscientious objectors. These male artists along with a few female artists captured the few galleries who were willing to show their work along with European modernists. This group of artists was called the Uptown Group.
Uptown Group prior to 1945
- Adolph GottliebAdolph GottliebAdolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
- David HareDavid Hare (artist)David Hare was an American artist, associated with the Surrealist movement. He is primarily known for his sculpture, though he also worked extensively in photography and painting.-Life and work:...
- Robert MotherwellRobert MotherwellRobert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
- Jackson PollockJackson PollockPaul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
- Richard Pousette-DartRichard Pousette-DartRichard Pousette-Dart was an American Abstract Expressionist painter.-Biography:He was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota and grew up in Valhalla, New York. Although Richard never attended art school, his father, Nathaniel J. Pousette-Dart, was a painter and writer on art. He moved to Manhattan in 1937...
- Ad ReinhardtAd ReinhardtAdolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
- Theodoros StamosTheodoros StamosTheodoros Stamos , was a Greek American artist. He is one of the youngest painters of the original group of abstract expressionist painters , which included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko...
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
, a well-respected writer and critic who also organized exhibitions and wrote catalogs became only later a member of the Uptown Group.
Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
had his first solo show in 1943 at the Art of This Century Gallery, which provided him with a yearly stipend. He together with his wife the painter Lee Krasner
Lee Krasner
Lee Krasner was an influential abstract expressionist painter in the second half of the 20th century. On October 25, 1945, she married artist Jackson Pollock, who was also influential in the Abstract Expressionism movement....
, left New York City in 1945 and moved to the Springs, East Hampton
East Hampton (town), New York
The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York...
, Long Island.
Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still was an American painter, and one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism.-Biography:...
, a Californian who at the end of 1945 moved to New York, soon joined the Uptown Group and became associated with the prestigious uptown gallery: The Art of This Century.
Thomas Hess, managing director of Art News described the Uptown Group:
- Newman, Gottlieb, Rothko and Still each thought (and thinks) himself the greatest painter in the world. That one might owe a debt to another becomes not a matter of simple ordinary fact, but a major issue of debate-like a trial for high treason. They made a tactical alliance, not a team, nor a group style, nor even a tendency. (Barnett Newman, Thomas B. Hess, New York: Walker, 1969)
Guggenheim closed the doors of The Art of This Century Gallery in 1947. The representation of her artists was taken over by Betty Parsons
Betty Parsons
Betty Parsons, born Betty Bierne Pierson, was an American artist and art dealer known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She was known as "the den mother of Abstract Expressionism"...
, an artist and a prominent New York socialite.
Books
- American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey ISBN 0-9677994-1-4
- New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists ISBN 0-9677994-0-6
- Susan Davidson and Philip Rylands, eds. (2005). "Peggy Guggenheim & Fredrick Kiesler: The Story of Art of This Century" (exhibition catalogue), Venice: Peggy Guggenheim Collection | ISBN 0-89207-320-9
- Peggy GuggenheimPeggy GuggenheimMarguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector. Born to a wealthy New York City family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who would establish the Solomon R...
, Out of This Century, Confessions of an Art Addict, (Foreword by Gore VidalGore VidalGore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
, (Introduction by Alfred H. Barr Jr.), ANCHOR BOOKS, Doubleday & Company, Inc. Universe Books 1979, ISBN 0385-17109-9