Brancusi

In gallery space devoted to the permanent collection, the Guggenheim is showcasing its rich holdings of the work of Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957). In the early decades of the twentieth century, Brancusi produced an innovative body of work that altered the trajectory of modern sculpture. During this period, Brancusi lived and worked in Paris, then a thriving artistic center where many modernist tenets were being developed and debated. He became an integral part of these conversations both through his relationships with other artists, such as Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani, and Henri Rousseau, and through his own pioneering work. His aspiration to express the essence of his subjects through simplified forms and his engagement with non–Western European artistic traditions led to new stylistic approaches. In addition, his mode of presentation, which equally emphasized sculpture and base and in which works were shown in direct relation to one another, instead of as independent entities, introduced new ways of thinking about the nature of the art object.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum began collecting Brancusi’s work in-depth in the mid-1950s under the leadership of its second director, James Johnson Sweeney. When Sweeney began his tenure at the museum, the collection was focused on nonobjective painting. Sweeney significantly expanded the scope of the institution’s holdings, bringing in other styles and mediums, particularly sculpture. The Guggenheim’s commitment to Brancusi during these years extended beyond its collecting priorities, and in 1955 the museum held the first major exhibition of the artist’s work.

Thannhauser

Justin K. Thannhauser (1892–1976) was the son of art dealer Heinrich Thannhauser (1859–1935), who founded the Moderne Galerie in Munich in 1909. From an early age, Thannhauser worked alongside his father in the flourishing gallery and helped to build an impressive and versatile exhibition program that included the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, the Italian Futurists, and regularly featured contemporary German artists. The Moderne Galerie hosted the premier exhibitions of the New Artists’ Association of Munich (Neue Künstlervereinigung München) and The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), both of which included Vasily Kandinsky, in 1909 and 1911, respectively. Kandinsky later described the gallery’s rooms as “perhaps the most beautiful exhibition spaces in all of Munich.” The Moderne Galerie also mounted one of the first major Pablo Picasso retrospectives in Germany in 1913, thus initiating the close relationship between Justin K. Thannhauser and Picasso that lasted until the artist’s death in 1973.

An ambitious businessman, Thannhauser opened a second gallery in Lucerne in 1919 with his cousin Siegfried Rosengart (1894–1985). Eight years later, the highly successful Galleries Thannhauser—as the Munich and Lucerne branches were collectively called—tested the waters in Berlin with a major special exhibition before permanently relocating its Munich gallery to this thriving art center. The Galleries Thannhauser officially closed in 1937, shortly after Thannhauser and his family immigrated to Paris. Thannhauser eventually settled in New York in 1940 and, together with his second wife, Hilde (1919–91), established himself as a private art dealer.

The Thannhausers’ commitment to promoting artistic progress paralleled the vision of Solomon R. Guggenheim (1861–1949). In appreciation of this shared spirit, and in the memory of his first wife and two sons—who might have continued in the family’s art trade had they not died at tragically young ages—Thannhauser gave a significant portion of his art collection, including over 30 works by Picasso, to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1963. From 1965 until Thannhauser’s death in 1976 (when his collection formally entered the Guggenheim’s holdings), the Thannhauser Collection was on long-term loan to the museum. A bequest of 10 additional works received after Hilde Thannhauser’s death in 1991 enhanced the legacy of this family of important art dealers.

The Thannhauser Collection is organized by Megan Fontanella, Curator, Modern Art and Provenance.

source: https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions