Overview

A spirited portrait of the colorful, irrepressible, and iconoclastic American collector who fearlessly advanced the cause of modern art. One of twentieth-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 bestselling author Francine Prose offers a singular reading of Guggenheim's life that will enthrall enthusiasts of twentieth-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.

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9781504718639

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Reviews

An adroit and lively portrait. -- Kirkus Reviews Excellent...Prose is a subtle and attentive chronicler. -- Guardian (London) Guggenheim...emerges as the embodiment of the age in Prose's judicious biography. -- Publishers Weekly Narrator Carrington MacDuffie takes just the right professional tone...[A] stylish narration. -- AudioFile Prose does justice to this great modern Maecenas. -- Daily Telegraph (London) Prose situates Guggenheim right in the middle of the Modernist, as a new kind of woman who is hard to define, and in that she is a perfect product and reflection of her age, never less than fascinating. -- Independent on Sunday (London) Prose...is determined not to miss either the strangeness or the marvelousness of her subject. Guggenheim...will no longer be quite so easily dismissed after Prose's incisive book. -- New York Review of Books Skillfully blends the events of Guggenheim's experience with details about the twentieth-century art scene, all in a vivid setting of time and place. -- Library Journal This vibrant biography shows that her cultural influence went far beyond mere philanthropy. -- New Yorker With fresh insights and illuminating details, Prose vividly tells...[Guggenheim's] poignant and remarkable story. -- Booklist

Narrator Carrington MacDuffie takes just the right professional tone...[A] stylish narration. -- AudioFile With fresh insights and illuminating details, Prose vividly tells...[Guggenheim's] poignant and remarkable story. -- Booklist An adroit and lively portrait. -- Kirkus Reviews Skillfully blends the events of Guggenheim's experience with details about the twentieth-century art scene, all in a vivid setting of time and place. -- Library Journal Guggenheim...emerges as the embodiment of the age in Prose's judicious biography. -- Publishers Weekly Prose situates Guggenheim right in the middle of the Modernist, as a new kind of woman who is hard to define, and in that she is a perfect product and reflection of her age, never less than fascinating. -- Independent on Sunday (London) Prose...is determined not to miss either the strangeness or the marvelousness of her subject. Guggenheim...will no longer be quite so easily dismissed after Prose's incisive book. -- New York Review of Books Prose does justice to this great modern Maecenas. -- Daily Telegraph (London) Excellent...Prose is a subtle and attentive chronicler. -- Guardian (London) This vibrant biography shows that her cultural influence went far beyond mere philanthropy. -- New Yorker

Author Information

Francine Prose is the author of many bestselling books of fiction, including A Changed Man and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the nonfiction New York Times bestseller Reading like a Writer. Her novel, Household Saints, was adapted for a movie by Nancy Savoca. Another novel, The Glorious Ones, has been adapted into a musical of the same name by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, which ran at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City in the Fall of 2007. She is the president of PEN American Center. Carrington MacDuffie is a voice actor and recording artist who has narrated over two hundred audiobooks, received numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has been a frequent finalist for the Audie Award, including for her original audiobook, Many Things Invisible. Alongside her narration work, she has released a new album of original songs, Only an Angel.

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