Susan Davidson

The story of the pioneering collectors and artists behind the Guggenheim's radical collectionVisionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim celebrates the late 19th- and early 20th-century masterworks at the core of the institution's holdings, and the trailblazers--artists and early patrons alike--whose contributions helped define the forward-looking identity of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Central to Visionaries is the story of museum founder Solomon R. Guggenheim, who with support from his trusted advisor, Hilla Rebay, become a great champion of "nonobjective" art and assembled a radical collection against the backdrop of economic crisis and war in the 1930s and '40s.A lead catalog essay by museum curator Megan Fontanella explores Solomon Guggenheim's fascinating activities in this period, together with that of five similarly pioneering art patrons whose personal holdings would become essential components of the foundation collection: Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early School of Paris artworks from Justin K. Thannhauser; the eclectic Expressionist inventory of migr art dealer Karl Nierendorf; the incomparable abstract and Surrealist paintings and sculptures from self-proclaimed "art addict" Peggy Guggenheim; and key modern examples from the estates of artists Katherine S. Dreier and Rebay. Alongside vibrant illustrations of works by such iconic artists as Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock, Visionaries also features essays by six curators examining touchstone works from the foundation collection.

Edited by Susan Davidson, the monograph is the first comprehensive publication dedicated to Wesselmann s most famous body of work, the Great American Nudes (1961 73), which combines sensual depictions of the female figure with references to art history and popular culture. The book will include full-color reproductions of each artwork in the series (totaling one hundred numbered works, plus proofs, and all color variations for editioned works), as well as related drawings, studies, and relevant works from associated series. Tom Wesselmann (1931 2004) was one of the leading American Pop artists of the 1960s. Departing from Abstract Expressionism, he went on to explore classical representations of the nude, still life, and landscape, while incorporating everyday objects and advertising ephemera.