When Collecting Wasn’t All About the Money

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Scott Reyburn

A documentary released last year revealed fresh insights about the life of the 20th century’s most celebrated female art collector. “Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict,” directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland and first shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, was shown in December to coincide with the Art Basel fair in Miami Beach. She regarded herself as the “midwife” of Abstract Expressionism. Today’s investment-savvy megacollectors tend to keep a lower profile. Major purchases are almost invariably anonymous and wrapped in confidentiality clauses, and even when a private collector opens a museum, interventions by advisers and curators can blur a sense of that individual’s personal taste. [link]