A showcase of surrealism, futurism and abstract expressionism

Peggy Guggenheim was everyone’s favourite eccentric art collector, writes Anne Hanley in The Telegraph, and the collection she shipped from New York to Venice in 1948 represented “a remarkable yet still intensely personal portofolio of modernist and surrealist art, including major works by Picasso, Magritte, Max Ernst (her husband for a while), Giacometti and Jackson Pollock.” The collection is housed in the 18th-century Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal. Just one storey high, it was never finished by the Venetian family that commissioned it. “The gardens are lovely, the museum shop is the best in Venice, and the bar/café makes a good lunch or tea stop.”  

“Heir to a colossal fortune, Peggy Guggenheim sent her celebrated collection of modern and avant-garde art from New York to Venice to be shown at the Greek Pavilion at the Biennale in a memorable setting designed by Carlo Scarpa … The following year, she bought the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an unfinished 18th-century structure: only the ground floor had been built. She lived in this combination house and museum up until her death in 1979. Works from all the great 20th-century masters are hung on the walls, From Surrealists to Abstract Expressionists, European and her favourite, the young American painter Jackson Pollock, to whom an entire gallery is devoted. Her last acquisitions are there, too, including The Angel of the City by Marino Marini, which stands, throned in majesty, on the front steps of the palace looks out on the Grand Canal.” - Philippe and Oscar Duboÿ in the Louis Vuitton Venice Guide.