While American millionaires in the 1930s decorated their mansions with classical portraits and landscapes, Solomon Guggenheim hung abstract compositions in his hotel suites and welcomed strangers to view them. This eccentric gesture sparked one of the world’s most important collections of modern art.
From Silver Mine to Art Gallery
The story of Solomon Guggenheim could serve as a textbook example of the American dream—if not for the fact that the dream began in Switzerland. His father, Meyer, arrived in the United States as an immigrant and traded in embroidery products before investing in a lead and silver mine in Leadville, Colorado, in 1879.
This decision changed the fortunes of the entire family. Within a few decades, the Guggenheims had built a mining empire spanning gold, copper, and lead across three continents.
After completing school in Philadelphia, Solomon went to Zurich to study German and business. He returned to America as a skilled manager and quickly proved his abilities.
In 1891, he saved a Mexican smelter from bankruptcy and, fifteen years later, founded the Yukon Gold Company in Alaska. Why then did a man managing mines on two hemispheres suddenly develop an interest in abstract painting?
Defying Good Advice
The answer lies in Guggenheim’s character. He began buying paintings in the 1890s, but the real breakthrough came after World War I when he retired.
He then met the German artist Baroness Hilla von Rebay, who introduced him to the world of non-objective art. The reaction from those around him was unanimous: everyone claimed that these modern oddities were utter nonsense.
Guggenheim responded in exactly the opposite way than expected. If so many people condemned abstract art, there had to be something valuable in it. This contrary logic led him to form a deep emotional connection with the works he began collecting. He didn’t want to keep them locked in storage or hang them solely for his own pleasure. He wanted to live with them—and let others do the same.
Hotel Plaza as an Art Gallery
From the early 1930s, the Guggenheims’ suites in New York’s Plaza Hotel became an informal museum. The bedroom walls were adorned with Kandinsky’s canvases, and anyone interested could arrange a visit to view the collection. Imagine the hotel staff’s bewilderment as art lovers streamed down the corridors towards a billionaire’s private rooms.
A similar fate befell the rural Trilora Court estate on Long Island. Guggenheim did not treat his acquisitions as investments or status symbols. He saw them as companions to daily life.
In 1936, he organized the first museum presentation of the collection in Charleston, South Carolina, near his hunting lodge. A year later, he founded the eponymous foundation, appointing Rebay as curator and director.
A Temple of Abstraction
The Museum of Non-Objective Art opened in 1939 on 54th Street in New York. It resembled no known gallery.
The walls were covered with pleated velvet, carpets lined the floors, incense filled the air, and the music of Bach and Beethoven played from the speakers. Guggenheim and Rebay created a space for spiritual contemplation, not just a conventional exhibition hall.
The museum’s growing popularity led them to even bolder plans. They commissioned a design from Frank Lloyd Wright, who proposed the famous spiral structure.
The building was to stand on Fifth Avenue, just a few blocks from the conservative Frick Collection and the Metropolitan Museum. The contrast was intentional. Wright designed a modernist icon, but Guggenheim did not live to see its opening. He died in 1949, ten years before the grand inauguration. Nevertheless, he never regretted, as he himself put it, his intuitive decision or his tremendous faith in non-objective art.
Autor
Marcus Renfell
Marcus Renfell is a historian driven by curiosity and passion. He refuses to accept the “safe,” polished versions of the past. Instead, he brings forgotten, overlooked, and distorted stories back to life. His work blends scholarly precision with the art of storytelling, turning historical narratives into vivid, page-turning experiences.
His mission is simple: to prove that history can be gripping, alive, and deeply personal.
His debut book: Women of Science. Stories You Were Never Told
In his first publication, Marcus Renfell shines a light on the remarkable women who shaped the world of science — both the pioneers whose names we know and the brilliant minds history forgot. It’s an inspiring journey through untold stories, groundbreaking achievements, and the resilience of women who changed our understanding of the world.
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