Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict

"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict is such an insightful movie about a woman that was far before her time. A truly inspiring story, Lisa Immordino Vreeland did a fantastic job capturing such an innovative woman and telling her story beautifully. Peggy Guggenheim was such a liberated woman and it was wonderful to see her passion through the film. Such an incredible Indie film! I'm so happy I can support films like these because it is key as fellow artists that we support one another's talents and storytelling. "Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is a mesmerizing documentary of a passionate,

artistic woman.

This "Art Addict" bio-documentary offers the inquisitive viewer a very informed overview of the life and times of wealthy, American socialite, Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979).

Early in her adult life, Guggenheim became intensely interested in 20th century art and its artists and, as a result, she is noted as being instrumental in advancing the careers of a number of painters who would have, otherwise, been unrecognized in their specialized profession.

All-in-all - (Due to its historical relevance in the realm of the art world) - I enthusiastically recommend this presentation as being worthwhile viewing.

Peggy Guggenheim accomplished two things noteworthy and lasting enough for books to be written and documentaries to be filmed about her, even to this day. She nurtured a set of talented young artists that turned out to be among the most influential of her century, and she put together one of the world's great collections of work by this same group of artists.

And there's more. She was quite a character. The guts that she showed in following her tastes in art also led her to affairs, brief and occasionally longer, with men, often young men, and especially artists she admired for more than their artistic talents. This led her to be widely gossiped about, not that this mattered enough to her to change her ways.

The film is sympathetic but not at all hagiographic. It's very well put together, framed around a candid oral interview with her late in life, and interspersed with comments from dozens of art world luminaries-- artists, dealers, critics--who knew her (sometimes in several senses of that term).

The film points out the duplicity of the culture that tolerates sexual promiscuity in males more than in females. Looking back on her life at the end of the film, Guggenheim comments on what made her happiest and on what she still desired most. Happily for the viewer, she speaks as honestly and as bluntly then as always.

I enjoyed watching Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, even though I found the relentless insults hurled at her by John Richardson (a Picasso biographer) to be a bit grating. I wonder if he was simply jealous that she managed to accomplish so much while, according to him, lacking taste, intelligence, and basically anything aside from ambition? Anyway, the life story of this woman is definitely colorful and frankly remarkable, as she was far more liberated than the typical women of her time. The film would have been better without the snarky interjections of Richardson, but I suppose that it revealed a more general contempt endured by Peggy Guggenheim throughout her lifetime by people just like him.

In fairness the title does specifically state that this film is about Peggy Guggenheim but her story is not a new one or particularly interesting. She was the stereotypical poor little rich girl but this documentary seems to put her in some kind of heroic light. Yes she got some artists out of Nazi occupied Europe but it showed just how dim witted she was when she was asked if she was afraid that she might be put into a concentration camp if the Nazis caught her and she replied that being scared was not in her nature. That is pretty much the essence of this documentary, it's a puff piece on her to turn her into some kind of super hero.

There is a little about the art and artists she displayed in her gallery but not nearly enough, it was all about a woman who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth who used her money to showcase art that she personally liked. The truth is she was a woman completely devoid of any artistic talent herself but hung around artists in order to make her feel like she was in their world.