The unusual Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York. Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York Solomon Guggenheim Museum works

Solomon Robert Guggenheim was born on February 2, 1861 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), in the large family of Meyer Guggenheim, who came to the United States (United States) from Switzerland (Switzerland) thirteen years before the birth of Solomon. There were eight children in total in the family. After studying German and business wisdom at the Swiss Concordia Institute in Zurich, Solomon returned to the States to work in a family business, or rather, businesses. The Guggenheims made their fortune by mining and processing lead, copper, and silver in the western United States. Solomon held several successive positions in the family business, and in 1891 went to Mexico (Mexico) to organize the work of the new company "Compañia de la Gran Fundicion Nacional Mexicana" and test his entrepreneurial skills. He had to do a lot of different things to make this company work, from acquiring mines and importing cars to dealing with railroad companies and extracting tax breaks from the Mexican government. In Mexico, Guggenheim had great success, and spent the next four years traveling between Mexico City and New York, achieving the point that eventually the enterprise could operate without him and generated over a million dollars in profits in year. Solomon built on his success by becoming president of the Braden Copper Company in Chile. Later, in 1906, he founded his own gold mining company, Yukon Gold, in Alaska.

Despite the fact that Solomon often worked around the clock, he took the time to find himself a wife. In 1895, Guggenheim married Irene Rothschild, a representative of the famous banking dynasty, with whom he had three daughters, Eleanor (Eleanor Guggenheim), Gertrude (Gertrude Guggenheim) and Barbara (Barbara Guggenheim). It was Irene who instilled in Solomon a love of art and collecting.

The Guggenheim collection began with Old Masters in the last decade of the 19th century. In 1919, he retired to take up collecting in earnest, but did not become interested in modern art until 1926, when he met Baroness Hilla von Rebay, who at one time was a fairly well-known German artist. At first, Solomon was fond of the works of European abstractionists, then non-objective art and other areas. In 1930, Hilla introduced Guggenheim to Vasily Kandinsky, and he visited the artist's studio in Dessau, Germany (Dessau, Germany), and began to acquire paintings by Kandinsky. Ultimately, the Guggenheim had more than 150 paintings by the artist. That same year, Guggenheim began showing his collections to the public for the first time in his suite at New York's Plaza Hotel. By 1939, he got rid of the old masters and concentrated on avant-garde artists.

Meanwhile, his collection grew, space became scarce, and first, in 1937, Solomon established a foundation for the development of modern art, and in 1939 opened his first museum in New York, housing his collection of European and American abstract art. During the years of the Great Depression and World War II, the Guggenheim helped many artists, establishing scholarships for young talents and providing financial assistance to fugitives from Nazi-infected Europe. In 1943, Solomon and Hilla thought about building a separate building for the permanent exhibition of the museum and turned to the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright (Frank Lloyd Wright). The unusual building of the museum is already an object of art in itself.

Alas, Solomon Guggenheim did not see him - he died on November 3, 1949. Three years later, the museum was named after him, and construction began only in 1956. The grand opening of the museum took place on October 21, 1959, ten years after the death of its mastermind.

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It is the permanent home of an ever-growing collection of Impressionists, Modern Art, Post-Impressionists, as well as specialty exhibitions throughout the year. Every year, the Guggenheim Museum is visited by more than a million connoisseurs and curious tourists. It hosts some of the most popular art exhibitions in the United States.

The museum was formed by the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation. In 1939 it was already known as the "museum of non-objective painting". The collection was managed at that time by the artist Hille von Rebay. The museum received its name after the death of its founder, in 1952. In 1959, the Solomon Guggenheim Museum moved from rented space to the current building.

The collection has grown organically over a decade, and is based on significant private collections, starting with the amassed collection of Solomon Guggenheim, who shared the accumulated paintings with a sister museum in Bilbao (Spain), as well as in other parts of our planet.

Solomon Robert Guggenheim is a member of a wealthy Jewish American family. In 1848, his father emigrated to the United States from Switzerland to set up an industrial business in Pennsylvania, mining copper, silver, and lead. Business went uphill, metallurgical plants were built, and with them the capital of the Guggenheim family increased.

Solomon was constantly fond of works of art and, since the 1890s, has been collecting old paintings. In 1926, he met the German-born artist Hille von Rebay. It is she who introduces Solomon to European avant-garde art, in particular abstract art. Since then, Solomon has completely changed the collection of the collection, referring to the famous works of Kandinsky and other modern masters of the brush.

Guggenheim began showing his collection to the public in his apartment at the Plaza Hotel. As the collection grew, he created the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation in 1937. The purpose of the foundation is to promote the recognition of contemporary art.

Museum of non-objective painting

The "Museum of Non-Objective Painting", under the direction of Rebay, in downtown Manhattan was opened in 1939. By the early 1940s, such a large collection of avant-garde paintings had accumulated that there was a need for a permanent building. In 1943, Rebay and Guggenheim wrote to Frank Lloyd Wright asking for help in creating a building to house the collection.

View of "Maurizio Cattelan: Everything" exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum (NAParish/flickr.com)

Wright has already become a well-known architect, erecting buildings as "organic architecture". His buildings were unusual and very functional. At that time he was very fashionable and modern, perhaps that is why he was chosen to organize the construction. Many visit Wright's buildings with wonder and admiration, especially the famous Falling House, which has become a popular museum in Pennsylvania.

Frank Wright accepted the opportunity from the Guggenheim to experiment with his organic style in an urban setting. It took him almost 16 years, over 700 sketches and six sets of blueprints to create the museum. And only in 1959 the building was commissioned.

The location of the Guggenheim Museum was not chosen by chance. Together with the architect Wright, Guggenheim viewed various sites in the Bronx and Manhattan overlooking the river. However, the collector felt that the proximity of Central Park would provide relief from the noise of New York, endless traffic jams and asphalt.

Even before its opening, the design of the museum was criticized. Some felt that the building would outshine the exhibits featured in the gallery. But the architect wrote that the building “on the contrary, creates a feeling of the infinity of painting, a beautiful symphony, that art is moving forward…”

On October 21, 1959, ten years after the death of the Guggenheim collector and six months after the death of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Solomon Guggenheim Museum opened its doors to art lovers for the first time. The building has gained wide popularity and recognition, the Guggenheim Museum has inspired many modern architects.

The museum itself is a work of art. An unusual cylindrical structure, much wider at the top than at the bottom, according to the author's idea, is referred to as the "Temple of the Spirit". A unique ramp gallery extends from ground level in a long and continuous spiral along the outer edges of the building, ending at the ceiling. The open rotunda offers visitors a unique opportunity to see several works at the same time and even at different levels. The viewer is given the opportunity to go upstairs in an elevator, and then slowly descend in a spiral and enjoy the works of art.

Over time, it became necessary to expand and reconstruct the building. Significant renovations were carried out from 2005 to 2008, with state-of-the-art equipment, echo technology and lighting installed.

Following the completion of extensive renovations, on September 22, 2008, the Guggenheim Museum celebrated the opening of the renovated building, which was attended by famous contemporary artists, and 2 weeks later it was given the status of a National Historic Landmark.

Collections of the great masters of the brush

During her leadership, Hille contributed to the collection of works by such masters as Rudolf Bauer, Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Modeliani and Pablo Picasso.

In 1948, the collection was greatly expanded through the purchase of real estate by art dealer Karl Nierendorf, in particular German Expressionist paintings. By this time, the foundation's collection included a wide range of paintings by established surrealists and expressionists, including paintings by Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka and Joan Miro.

After the death of Solomon Guggenheim in 1949, members of his family, who are the board of directors of the foundation, were constantly dissatisfied with the work of Rebay. But most likely it was a personal and philosophical disagreement with the artist - the director of the museum. In 1952, Rebay resigned, but nevertheless left part of her personal collection at the Foundation of her own free will. These were the famous works of Kandinsky, Calder, Albert Gleizes, Klee, Kurt Schwitters and Mondrian. In the same year, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting was renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

In 1952 a new director was appointed, James Johnson Sweeney. Thanks to him, the fund was replenished with collections of modernist avant-garde sculptors Constantin Brancusi, Jozsef Csaky, Jean Arp, Calder, Alberto Giacometti, David Smith and many others.

Thanks to the good relationship between Rebay and the artist-collector Katherine Dreyer, the latter donated several valuable works to the Guggenheim Gallery. The collection was replenished by Brancusi and Juan Gris, sculpture by Alexander Archipenko, Duchamp, Mondrian, and Calder.

Exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum (Kent Wang / flickr.com)

In 1961, Thomas M. Messer was appointed head of the museum, who held this post for a record 27 years. During its work, the Guggenheim Museum has held several outstanding exhibitions of Kandinsky, presented many private collections of avant-garde art, including the Russian avant-garde collector Georgy Costakis.

Over time, the foundation acquired paintings by contemporary artists Alberto Giacometti, Willem de Koonning and Jackson Pollock. Impressionist and post-impressionist artists were not ignored. The gallery contains artistic masterpieces by Paul Cezanne, 32 works by Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Edouard Manet, Pissarro and Van Gogh.

From 1988 to 2008, the museum was headed by Thomas Krenz, who quickly expanded the museum's sculpture and painting fund, including photography. In 1992, the museum donated 200 photographs of the famous homoerotic photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, various photographs of which are valued in the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In addition, some of the most popular exhibitions organized by Tomas Krenz are "Africa: The Art of the Continent" (1996), "China: 5000 Years" (1998), "Brazil: Body and Soul" (2001) and " Aztec Empire (2004)

In 2001, the Art Education Center was opened on the basis of the museum.

From 2008 to the present, the museum has been led by the fifth director, Richard Armstrong. In addition to the permanent collections, the fund is constantly growing.

The museum building has become a cultural symbol of contemporary art. It is often featured in movies and TV shows. Episodes of "Men in Black" and "Mr. Popper's Penguins" were filmed here, as well as many other movie scenes.

Information for visitors

Getting to the museum is quite easy. By train number 4,5,6 to the station "86th Avenue" Then get on foot to 89th Avenue, where at the corner from 5th Avenue you can immediately notice an unusual stepped building.

The Guggenheim Museum is open to visitors on all days of the week except Thursday. Opening hours from 10:00 to 17:45, and on Friday the museum is open until 20:00. Ticket price is $18.

One of the most striking attractions in New York is the Solomon Guggenheim Museum. Within its walls you can see a unique collection of contemporary art. For several decades, the museum building has been decorating the city. It is a true masterpiece of architectural art.

History of creation

The museum got its name in honor of the famous American millionaire Robert Guggenheim. In 1848, his father arrived from Switzerland to America and established a quite profitable iron and steel business here. Solomon, from childhood, was fond of art. For several years, he collected in his apartment a magnificent collection of paintings by contemporary masters. The collection was constantly growing, and soon he was organizing art exhibitions. But Guggenheim did not stop there; in 1937, under his leadership, a foundation for contemporary art was created. The fund was actively developing and replenishing, therefore, after 6 years, its founder had a wonderful idea - to build an art museum. Its grand opening took place in 1959. Before the eyes of the townspeople, an original pyramidal structure appeared, made in the form of an inverted tower - gradually expanding towards the top. The highlight of the museum is its beautiful ramp gallery, stretching from the ground to the ceiling. The splendid rotunda gives visitors the opportunity to start enjoying art from the street. The building was so loved by the locals that it soon became a real symbol of New York. The Solomon Guggenheim Museum was built in the middle of a picturesque natural park, which gave it even more charm. In 2005, the museum was reconstructed, the building was equipped with new modern equipment.

Guggenheim Museum Collections

The Guggenheim Museum is a huge art store. His first exposition consisted of paintings by such great artists as Picasso, Delaunay, Kandinsky, Chagall, Mondrian and Bauer. A few years later, the collection was supplemented by works by German surrealists and foreign expressionists. Among the most famous works are the works of Joan Miro, Oskar Kokoschka, and also Paul Klee. In 1949, Robert Guggenheim died, the artist Rebay resigned as director and left the museum, leaving within its walls several paintings from her personal collection - paintings by Schwitters, Kandinsky, Klee, Mondrian and Calder. Thanks to the newly elected director James Swaney, the museum has been replenished with the most unique exhibits of famous avant-garde sculptors. Artists like Calder, Arp, Brancusi, Smith, Giacometti and Chucky. In 1926, works by the Russian art critic Georgy Kostaki joined the collection of contemporary art. A few years later, the museum was replenished with works by famous impressionists - Picasso, Manet, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Pissarro. In 2008, the museum hosted the first photographic exhibition, the exposition of which included up to two hundred photographs belonging to the best photographer of that time - Robert Mapplethorpe. Later, an art school was opened inside the museum.

Incredible exhibitions

The Solomon Museum is incredibly popular due to its excellent thematic exhibitions. Among the most interesting are the expositions "Africa, the art of the continent", "5 millennia, China", "Aztec Empire". The Russian exhibition deserves special attention. The exposition "Russia" presents the most valuable paintings by Russian artists. Such as - Repin, Vrubel, Kramskoy, Bryullov, Chagall and Laktionov.

Information for tourists

In order to get to the museum, you need to use trains No. 6, 4, 5. Get off at the station "avenue - 86". From here you can walk to the museum.

Museum opening hours:

- daily, except Thursday - from 10:00 - 17:45, Friday - from 10:00 - 20:00.

Films have been filmed several times within the walls of the museum. Among the most famous paintings are Men in Black, International, Once Upon a Time in Rome.

Solomon Guggenheim Museum on New York map

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Solomon Guggenheim Museum- an amazing museum of modern art in New York, USA. This place is a treasure trove of works of contemporary fine art, graphics, sculpture, and painting.

The museum owes its existence to Solomon Robert Guggenheim, who, being a patron of the arts, decided in 1937 that there were enough old museums in the world, and he came up with the idea to create a museum that would exhibit the works of his talented contemporaries. He had no idea how it would all end...

More than 20 years have passed from the laying of the first brick to the opening, and unfortunately, the construction was completed when neither the founder nor the architect was alive. By the way, the author of the project of the current building was Frank Lloyd Wright.

Located Guggenheim Museum on the legendary Fifth Avenue, between two streets, not far from the picturesque green Central Park. This location was chosen for a reason. After all, the majority of tourists first of all try to get to this street. This museum surprises visitors from the very beginning with its unusual architecture: this is a very unusual building, consisting of six levels. In it, the viewer must first climb to the top floor using a lift, and then go down the internal spiral staircase. Thanks to this solution, viewing is possible from the ramp, the visitor sees all the halls adjacent to it, in which there are many works by masters of modern art and sculpture.

Building from the street Solomon Guggenheim Museum looks like an inverted cone. The building is especially beautiful in the evening, it is effectively illuminated by multi-colored spotlights, and this makes it a real decoration of the night Manhattan. The museum's collection contains works by many masters of art, from the 19th century to the present day.

In the Solomon Guggenheim Museum you will find works by such masters as Kandinsky, Tannhauser, Chagall, Nirendorf, Cezanne, Pollack, Rauschenberg, Dreyer, Serra, Warhol, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Klee, Picasso, Rousseau, Giacometti, Miro, Léger, Delaunay, Goncharov and many others. The number of works stored in the museum exceeds 6 thousand exhibits. Along with the collections that are exhibited here daily, the Guggenheim Museum also hosts exhibitions and installations by the geniuses of our time.

The Solomon Guggenheim Museum is open seven days a week, its doors are open to visitors even on holidays. The entrance fee to the museum is $18. However, on Saturday evenings there is a way to get into the museum for a more reasonable fee. Employees came up with a wonderful solution in order to attract more visitors. Only once a week the entrance to the museum is exactly as much as you are not sorry to pay for viewing masterpieces. This idea has borne fruit. The lines of tourists on this day are inexhaustible. In addition, every year a festival is held in Manhattan, during which admission to the Guggenheim Museum is free. Then you won't be able to push through here at all!

Art historians from different countries were so inspired by the idea of ​​the Guggenheim that they began to open branches of the Guggenheim Foundation around the world. Exhibitions were opened in Venice, a gallery in London, the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, and two museums in Las Vegas: the Guggenheim Las Vegas and the Guggenheim Hermitage. The Guggenheim Foundation is the largest network of museums.

Currently, the construction of branches of the Guggenheim Museum does not stop. Four more museums are currently at the design stage, and two others are already under construction. One is located in the picturesque and flourishing Abu Dhabi (UAE), it is located on the artificially created island of Saadiyat. It is assumed that this branch Solomon Guggenheim Museum will be 12 times larger than the original.

Story. Solomon Guggenheim - businessman and industrialist, creator of a foundation to support contemporary art. By the middle of the last century, the fund's collection had grown so much that a building was needed to store all the works of art. According to the Guggenheim, it should become not just a public museum, but also a "temple of the spirit." The project of the building was developed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Reid, and construction was completed only in 1959, when neither the architect nor the Guggenheim were already alive.

Peculiarities. When creating the project, the architect of the museum wanted to move away from the fact that museum visitors, viewing the expositions, return the same way. Externally, the museum looks like an inverted pyramid tower, and visitors are invited to take the elevator to the top floor, and already descending in a spiral, to examine the museum's exposition.

The current collection of the museum is a rich collection of paintings from different countries at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Your attention will be offered paintings by Kandinsky, Chagall, Cezanne, Pollack, Kokoschka, Klee, Van Gogh and many others. Be sure to check out the museum's temporary exhibition programs if you are in, namely in New York, they are always very unusual.

Helpful information. An adult ticket costs $22. Once a week there are hours where the entrance fee is not fixed, but optional. Please check the museum's website for details.

Opening hours: daily from 10:00 to 17:45, day off on Tuesday.