Peggy Guggenheim (2015)

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict is a documentary film which premiered in 2015. It is about Peggy Guggenheim, a member of the famous and wealthy Guggenheim family, who became an independent collector of modern art (paintings and sculptures). Here is some basic information about it:

** Produced by Stanley Buchtal, David Koh and others

** Directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland

** Written by Lisa Immordino Vreeland and Bernadine Colish

** Released on DVD in 2016

** Run time: 91 minutes

Peggy Guggenheim was born in the US in 1898; she died in Italy in 1979, at the age of 81. This film covers her life and career from the beginning to the end. It is divided into six chapters which follow a chronological line from 1898 to 1979 and beyond. Here are the headlines:

** Part one - Early Life, New York, 1898-1921

** Part two – Awakening, Paris, 1921-1938

** Part three – Getting Serious, London, 1938-1939

** Part four – War Time, Paris, 1939-1941

** Part five – Art of the Century Gallery, New York, 1941-1947

** Part six – The Museum, Venice, 1947-1979

Peggy was wealthy, and therefore she was an independent woman. She did not have to follow the norms and traditions which prevailed during her time. She often broke the rules. She could do this, because she was rich. She was often criticized, even ridiculed, by others, but she did not care about that. She is often described as eccentric, which is quite true: she was not like everybody else.

Peggy did not have any formal training in the history of art. She was self-taught. It seems she had a good eye for what would eventually be considered as great works of art. She met many artists and often bought some of their works. When she met them, they were not yet famous, they were still struggling to get by. She helped them when she bought some of their works. Sometimes she even offered them additional financial support. As time went by, her collection of modern art turned out to be one of the most important and most valuable in the world.

Peggy was married two times. She had two children, a son and a daughter. She also had many lovers. She did not try to hide this fact. This was another example of how she ignored the norms and traditions which prevailed during her time.

Peggy had a gallery in London before World War Two. When the war broke out, she went to France where she bought several works of modern art. Because of the war, the price was low: the artists were more than happy to sell some of their works to her and by some miracle she was able to export them to the US, even though there was a war going on. When she returned to the US, she opened a gallery in New York.

After the war, Peggy returned to Europe. This time she decided to settle in Italy. She bought a palace in Venice and turned it into a museum which she ran until the end of her life. Before her death, she made sure the collection would stay in Venice. It was made a part of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Her museum is still there. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice.

This film is based on several sources. The director Lisa Vreeland has interviewed several experts, who talk about Peggy and the numerous works of art she collected during her life. In addition, Vreeland discovered some tapes of interviews from 1978 and 1979 that were considered lost. The interviews were conducted by Peggy’s biographer Jacqueline Bograd Weld. Thanks to these interviews, this film about Peggy’s life and career is - to a large extent - narrated by Peggy herself.

In these interviews, Peggy seems to be frank and honest about her life. She talks about her success as a collector of modern art; she also talks about some of the problems in her life.

What do other reviewers say about this film? On IMDb it has a rating of 72 per cent, which corresponds to 3.5 stars on Amazon; on Rotten Tomatoes it has a rating of 93 per cent; in the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw offers four out of five stars (a rating of 80 per cent). I understand the positive reviews and I agree with them.

As far as I can tell, this film is an ABC-product: it is accurate, balanced and comprehensive. While it is a warm portrait of Peggy, she is not portrayed as a saint. There is no attempt to hide the problems that occurred in her life. If you are interested in modern art and the history of modern art, this film is definitely something for you.

PS # 1. Lisa Vreeland is also the director of a documentary film about her grandmother: Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel from 2012.

PS # 2. Jacqueline Bograd Weld’s biography Peggy: The Wayward Guggenheim was first published in 1986. A paperback version appeared in 1988.

PS # 3. Peggy wrote an autobiography. In the first version Out of this Century from 1946 she uses pseudonyms for her lovers. In the second version Confessions of an Art Addict from 1959 she reveals the true names of her lovers.

PS # 4. For more details and more information, see the following book: Peggy Guggenheim: Mistress of Modernism by Mary Dearborn (2007).

PS # 5. The following articles are available online:

** Jay Weissberg, “Film Review – Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict,” Variety, 5 May 2015

** Daniel M. Gold, “Review – Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict – Portrait of an heiress with a cause,” New York Times, 5 November 2015

** Michael O’Sullivan, “Portrait of an arts patron in Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict,” Washington Post, 3 December 2015

** Peter Bradshaw, “Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict – Lisa Vreeland does justice to an extraordinary life,” The Guardian, 10 December 2015

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Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979)

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Eva Hesse (2016)

Eva Hesse is a documentary film which premiered in 2016. It is about the life and work of the German-born American artist Eva Hesse who was only 34 years old in 1970 when she died from a brain tumor. Here is some basic information about this film:

** Writer and director: Marcie Begleiter

** Available on DVD and via Amazon Prime Video

** Run time: 108 minutes

There are interviews with people who knew her and worked with her (including her sister and her ex-husband). I will not mention all names, because the complete list is too long. Here are some of the names (in alphabetical order):

** Carl Andre (born 1935) - artist

** Tom Doyle (1928-2016) – Irish sculptor, Eva’s ex-husband

** Dan Graham (born 1942) - artist

** Helen Hesse Charash (born 1934) – Eva’s older sister

** Nancy Holt (1938-2014) - artist

** Lucy Lippard (born 1937) – art critic and curator, author of a book about Eva (published in 1976)

** Robert and Sylvia Mangold - artists

** Werner Nekes (1944-2017) – German film director

** Nicholas Serota (born 1946) – art historian, director of Tate Museums and Galleries 1988-2017

** Richard Serra (born 1938) – artist

** Elisabeth Sussman (born 1939) – curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art

The film also presents some writings by Eva, by her father William Hesse and by her close friend Sol LeWitt. Here are the details:

** Selma Blair = the voice of Eva Hesse (1936-1970)

** Bob Balaban = the voice of Eva’s father William Hesse (died 1966)

** Patrick Kennedy = the voice of Eva’s friend Sol LeWitt (1928-2007)

As an artist, Eva was a minimalist who experimented with the materials she used for her work. During her short life she was not so famous, but since her death in 1970 she has become better known and today she is regarded by many observers as a ground-breaking artist. In this film, many of her works are presented and discussed.

What do reviewers say about this film? Here are the results of three review aggregators:

69 per cent = Meta

70 per cent = IMDb

64 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)

79 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)

On the US version of Amazon there are at the moment thirty reviews of this product. The average rating is 4.8 stars.

As you can see, the ratings are quite good, but (except for Amazon) not really great. When you look at Rotten Tomatoes, you can see that there is a significant gap between the general audience and the professional critics. The critics like this film much more than the audience, although both groups are positive.

In this case I have to side with the critics. In fact, I want to go higher than the critics. I think this film deserves a rating of five stars.

PS. The following articles are available online:

** Frank Sheck, “Eva Hesse: Film Review,” The Hollywood Reporter, 27 April 2016

** Carolina A. Miranda, “Groundbreaking sculptor Eva Hesse finally gets a documentary film that tells the story of her life and work,” Los Angeles Times, 11 May 2016

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Eva Hesse (1936-1970)

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