Hommage a Moi
Confessions of an Art Addict. By Peg gy Guggen- heim. (Deutsch, 21s.) No sooner had Peggy Guggenheim w aded out to a small island in the Indian Ocean, at the bidding of Paul Bowles who seems to have ; owned it, than she discovered a pair of child pr odigies. She has the temperament for such disc iveries, and the incident is a fitting end to the s tory of her pleasures and encouragements. This
rather more grave, but there is no los
pletes and modifies her old memoir: ; and seems
6 of charm. book corn- ow copious, It is busy yet distrait, brief yet someh t. She sprang and disarming and alarming and swce from the union of two formidable Je wish dynas- ties, wandering as a girl through a wo od of eccen- tric relatives; the wilder shores of Ame rican wealth
as the uncle produced such standard specimens a
who 'lived on charcoal, which he ha d been eat- s teeth were ing for many years, and as a result hi ed pieces of black. In a zinc-lined pocket he carri
he time. He cracked ice which he sucked all th
e almost no drank whisky before breakfast and at d possessor' food.' She began her life as a 'prou in the late Thirties and at the outbreat : of war was in London. planning a museum of modern art ioking man. Herbert Read ('a very distinguished I( eemed to be He resembled a prime minister and s :r—Disraeli, very well bred . . .') was her panne ia, and she she explains, to her Queen Victor ompiled. In bought from a list which he had c
Paris she was 'terribly in love' Samuel with Beckett. 'Ever since his birth, he h had retained a terrible memory of life in his mot her's womb. He was constantly suffering from tl his and had 'ocating.' As awful crises, when he felt he was suff
we now have reason to know. Half r
way through married that the war she went to New York, n me an impar- gothic creature Max Ernst and becan- tial devotee of abstraction and Surrealism, her taste for which enables her to commend Giacometti's conversation as 'Surrealist and whimsical, like a divertimento of Mozart.' These, of course, were the founding years of a new achievement in American painting. New prodi- gies were revealed to Peggy Guggenheim and Jackson Pollock was one. In 1947, however, she left for Venice and the palazzo where her light still burns.
Her addiction to art, which can seem like a branch of American millionaire philanthropy ('treasures' must be presented to 'the masses'), can also seem like a bashful annexe of show business. She has more than a trace of Dali's salesmanship. Her confessional bent, it has been said, may be connected with her wish to exhibit, and be herself on show among her startling pic- tures. Her addiction may have interfered with her friendships, and she is apt to seem a little blind and sad when she speaks of them. But it is a seeing blindness often enough: she is shrewder than her manner suggests and when she ribs the implacable Berenson, she scores undeniably. It is far from clear how much she knows about modern art. Her remarks about the Francis Bacon in her bedroom are fairly characteristic: 'It depicts a very sympathetic ape seated on a chest, guarding a treasure; the background is all done in fuchsia-coloured pastel, which goes admirably with my turquoise walls. . . On the other hand, she does enjoy her paintings and however much she may have ministered to the garish and the silly, and to the play of fashion, it is something to be eager, pleased and impression- able. She is likely to have been shrewd in taking advice, her patronage had virtues that no institu- tion could have and good painters were protected. Most of her reflections on art are delivered on the last page, and rather cryptically. Contempor- ary art has 'gone to hell, as a result of the financial attitude,' and she tells how dour men phone their gallery for daily quotations. This hell will be no surprise to those who have read her book, not that she herself was ever like that. She has a queenly way of expecting loyalty, but she will continue to get some, and it is a pity that the retrospective exhibition in her honour which has been mooted in New York has not yet been held. French and all, the title should be kept—'Hommage a Peggy.'
KARL MILLER
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