Displaying items by tag: guggenheim foundation

The descendants of heiress, art collector, and patron Peggy Guggenheim are launching yet another appeal in a French court tomorrow against the Guggenheim Foundation over the management of her vast art collection, housed in an 18th century palazzo on Venice's Grand Canal, AFP reports.

After years of collecting art, Guggenheim settled in Venice, where she purchased Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in 1949.

The Guggenheim announced that Paul Chan is the winner of the 2014 Hugo Boss Prize. Chan is the tenth artist to win the biennial $100,000 art prize, which is administered by the Guggenheim Foundation, and singles out an artist whose body of work is considered an outstanding contribution to contemporary art. "The prize is firmly established as one of the art world's most resonant accolades, honoring contemporary practices of enduring power and influence," noted museum director Richard Armstrong.

"It reflects our understanding of what are the most trenchant issues in contemporary art… It's like a Biennial in a way," added deputy director Nancy Spector.

Thomas M. Messer, the longtime director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, passed away on Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at his home in Manhattan. Messer served as the institution’s director from 1961 to 1988 when he retired. Messer also served as the director of the Guggenheim Foundation, which is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of art, from 1980 to 1988.

During his time at the Guggenheim, Messer helped to establish the museum as of one of the finest art institutions in the world. In doing so, he grew its collection, increased its exhibitions program, improved its publications, and helped it to become a global entity.

Messer vastly expanded the Guggenheim’s holdings by acquiring two major private collections. In 1963, Justin K. Thanhauser, the son of a German art dealer, gave the museum a trove of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and early modern works including over 30 Picassos. The second bequest came from Peggy Guggenheim who left her entire collection including an array of Cubist, Surrealist, and Abstract Expressionist works to the Guggenheim Foundation. The collection operates as a museum known as the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.  

Born in Eastern Europe in 1920, Messer arrived in the United States in 1939. He graduated from Boston University in 1942, joined the army, and served as an interrogator for military intelligence in Europe. After the war, he stayed in Europe and studied art at the Sorbonne. Upon his return back to the United States, Messer was named director of a small museum in New Mexico. He eventually earned a master’s degree in art history from Harvard and was soon appointed director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

While he has no surviving family, Messer leaves behind a legacy of diplomatic leadership as well as one of the finest art institutions in the world.