Dir: Lisa Immordino Vreeland | 90’ | US
Playing out like a speed date with the most important artists of the 20th century, Vreeland’s documentary is packed with juicy secrets and fascinating insight into one of the world’s most accomplished art patrons: Peggy Guggenheim.
Art lovers and social voyeurs will be thrilled and inspired by this engrossing biopic, which reveals Peggy Guggenheim as an enthusiastic and appealing maverick who used her meagre fortune to amass one of the most eclectic art collections ever assembled.
It’s hard to imagine a life more interesting than Peggy Guggenheim’s: born in 1898 to a fabled Jewish dynasty that had immigrated to the USA from Europe and whose members were all “off their rockers”; her mother came from a wealthy banking family, and her beloved father drowned on the Titanic, leaving Peggy somewhat compromised financially and socially within her peer group. Paddling her own canoe, she became a trend-setting “lone wolf” (her words), with a keen eye for a bargain and a gargantuan sexual appetite matched only by her addiction to acquiring edgy art.
Vreeland’s film is chock-full of facts and fascinating footage but never feels didactic or “learned”. Expertly collated and gripping from start to finish, it whizzes through Peggy’s eventful life during one of the most pivotal eras of the 20th century, making a natural companion piece to her 2011 debut documentary, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, which tackled her own aunt, the legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland.
Here, Vreeland shares what is purportedly the last interview with Peggy Guggenheim, recorded before her death in 1979. What makes this especially compelling is the audio footage accompanying the photographs and video clips, giving a real sense of Peggy’s personality and of the people she met and engaged with—often intimately. Interviews with present-day art-world personalities and professionals flesh out the story, providing a three-dimensional experience that transports us back to the world of 20th-century modern art. The suave art historian Sir John Richardson dishes the dirt; curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist and dealer Larry Gagosian share their views; Marina Abramović opines on the merits of patrons versus collectors; and Robert De Niro waxes lyrical about his parents, who were both talented artists and exhibited their work courtesy of Peggy. Her other great claim to fame was nurturing and championing Jackson Pollock, whom she “discovered” and supported for many years.
Vreeland divides her straightforward, linear narrative into four main sections: Peggy’s upbringing in New York’s rarefied circles; her move to Paris, where she met—and slept with—as many artists as she could; her time in London, where she had two children, Sindbad and Pegeen, and opened the Guggenheim Jeune gallery under the artistic guidance of Marcel Duchamp; her return to Paris, where she turned her hand to collecting the “Degenerate Art” denounced by Hitler; her unfaithful marriage to Max Ernst, who “didn’t give a damn for her”; and finally her return to New York, where she established the Art of This Century Gallery and grew closer to her wealthy uncle Solomon, whose name would become synonymous with New York’s famous Guggenheim Museum. Her later years were spent in Venice among dogs, lovers and artists. Vreeland captures the essence of Peggy with warmth and wit, and enthrals us in the process.
Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector
The Jillian and Arthur M. Sackler Wing of Galleries
21 November 2026 – 14 March 2027