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New York, Paris, Venice, Petersfield? Yes, Petersfield. In Hampshire. These are places Peggy Guggenheim made her home. And the American socialite and collector -- whose name is almost synonymous with modern art -- must have liked the town because she lived in the area for five years in the 1930s.
If World War II hadn't intervened, would the self-proclaimed "art addict" have ever moved to Venice to exhibit her collection there in the museum that bears her name on the Grand Canal? And, as this photo shows, to soak up the sunshine and the Dolce Vita.
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Among the lesser-known names on display is Rita Kernn-Larsen, a Danish Surrealist whom Guggenheim had met in Paris. The images she painted included the concept of the femme-arbre, linking human life and the natural world.
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At the opening of her exhibition, we learn, the Dane wore a Surrealist hat adorned with little bells, feathers and porridge oats, which floated down as she walked.
This little-known episode is the subject of Peggy Guggenheim: Petersfield to Palazzo at Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery. It's the 25th anniversary this year of this fairly modest local museum, and they've pulled out the stops to tell the story of perhaps the most glamorous resident of the local area and how she began building her art collection during her time there. The curators have even been able to borrow a few pieces from the Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
But what was Guggenheim doing in Petersfield in the first place, you may ask.
From a family that had made a fortune in mining and metals, Peggy, born in 1898, went to Paris with her mother in 1921 (her father had died on the Titanic). She married, had two children, became active in art circles, divorced and then moved to London with her lover, John Holms, who died at the start of 1934. Guggenheim (a woman with a rather colourful love life) then began an affair with Douglas Garman, who had just bought a cottage for his mother in South Harting, east of Petersfield.
In October 1934, the pair bought Yew Tree Cottage on the road between Petersfield and South Harting, and there Guggenheim was to live until the war broke out in 1939.
In October 1934, the pair bought Yew Tree Cottage on the road between Petersfield and South Harting, and there Guggenheim was to live until the war broke out in 1939.
It doesn't look much of a place from this contemporary photograph, but it had its advantages. "The real reason I wanted this house was because it was on the bus line between Harting and Petersfield," Guggenheim wrote in her memoirs. She loved the South Downs and the surrounding countryside, but also the company of artists and writers. They were frequent visitors to the cottage, though she wrote that her "life in Yew Tree Cottage was so domestic."
Updated and extended, this is what the house, which can't actually be seen from the road, looked like just a few years ago.
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The museum's assembled a lot of archive material to demonstrate what things must have been like for Guggenheim and in the district in the 30s. Newspaper cuttings tell how she was fined for using an unlicensed car in 1937, though it's not clear if she actually appeared in person in the courtroom that now forms part of the museum. Guggenheim's son, the wonderfully named Sindbad, boarded at Bedales School on the other side of Petersfield and captained the cricket team.
However, Guggenheim didn't have a focus in her life, particularly after her relationship with Garman ended. With encouragement from friends, she turned seriously to art, opening a gallery called Guggenheim Jeune in London's Cork Street in early 1938, and organising a series of avant-garde exhibitions with the aid of advisers such as Marcel Duchamp and Herbert Read.
And here's your chance to see, in Petersfield, the sort of art Guggenheim was collecting at this time. Such as Henry Moore, the only British artist in a Contemporary Sculpture exhibition at her new gallery. Moore showed a large wooden reclining figure that Guggenheim wanted to buy, but it was too big for the garden at Yew Tree Cottage. He offered her a smaller bronze instead.
And here's your chance to see, in Petersfield, the sort of art Guggenheim was collecting at this time. Such as Henry Moore, the only British artist in a Contemporary Sculpture exhibition at her new gallery. Moore showed a large wooden reclining figure that Guggenheim wanted to buy, but it was too big for the garden at Yew Tree Cottage. He offered her a smaller bronze instead.
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Size wasn't the only problem that Guggenheim had to deal with; she had a bit of difficulty bringing sculptures in from abroad to display. Newspaper cuttings on show in the exhibition relate how customs officers called on the then director of the Tate to decided whether contemporary works by the likes of Constantin Brancusi could be classified as art and thus imported duty-free. He ruled they weren't....
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Guggenheim also gave an exhibition to Yves Tanguy, with whom she had a brief affair. She invited him down to Yew Tree Cottage, where he spent time drawing in the garden, including this strange creature with a real feather for its tail, in which she saw a portrait of herself.
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It's inscribed at the bottom right "Pour Peggy, Yew Tree Cottage 20 juillet 1938".
After war broke out, Guggenheim moved to Paris, where she stepped up her collecting. "I started very seriously to buy paintings and sculptures," she wrote. "My motto was 'Buy a picture a day' and I lived up to it." The show takes us on to her move back to New York, her relationship with Max Ernst and then her creation of the Venice museum after peace returned to Europe.
This isn't a show with a huge amount of actual painting or sculpture to see, but it's a fascinating chunk of art history and social history, and well worth a visit if you're reasonably close to Petersfield, now revealed to the wider world as one of the cradles of modern art.
Practicalities
Peggy Guggenheim: Petersfield to Palazzo is on at Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery until October 5. It's open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1000 to 1700, and full-price admission is £8. Give yourself about an hour to go through the exhibition. The museum is a few minutes walk from Petersfield station, via the market square in the centre of town. There's a train every 30 minutes to Petersfield from London Waterloo, taking just over an hour.
If you start early enough, you could get to see this exhibition and the excellent Still Life in Britain show at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester on the same day. There's a train every half an hour from Petersfield to Havant for an easy connection to Chichester, or vice versa. There's also a slower and infrequent, if scenic, direct bus.
If you start early enough, you could get to see this exhibition and the excellent Still Life in Britain show at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester on the same day. There's a train every half an hour from Petersfield to Havant for an easy connection to Chichester, or vice versa. There's also a slower and infrequent, if scenic, direct bus.
Images
Peggy Guggenheim on the roof terrace of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, Venice, early 1950s, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Photo Archivio Cameraphoto Epoche
Yew Tree Cottage, 1935. Emily Holmes Coleman Archive, courtesy Emily Holmes Coleman
Yew Tree Cottage with later extensions, 2018
Henry Moore (1898-1986), Reclining Figure, 1938 (cast 1946), Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York). Reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation
Rita Kernn-Larsen (1904-1998), Sycamore Leaf, 1939, National Trust, 2 Willow Road, London
Yves Tanguy (1900-1955), Untitled, July 20, 1938, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York). © ARS, New York and DACS, London 2023
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