CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/9/2017

Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim

In 1936, Hilla von Rebay—artist, cofounder and first director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—wrote, "The importance of a collection does not lie in its valuable pictures alone, for anyone with great wealth may acquire the most famous ones. The real value of a collection lies in its organic growth and selection, expressing the personality of the collector.” Published to accompany the exhibition Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim, opening tomorrow, this gorgeous, generous, historical volume tells the story of the pioneering collectors and artists behind the museum's formation and radical early collection. Featured photograph is of Solomon Guggenheim's private suite in the Plaza Hotel in New York, circa 1937, hung with Vasily Kandinsky’s "Komposition 8" (1923), Fernand Léger’s "Composition [état definitive]" (1925) and various Kandinsky watercolors.