If I Were Peggy Guggenheim...

 If I were Peggy Guggenheim and my family had given me a loaded bank account, these are some of the things I would buy.  She was famous for her crazy sunglasses and she is wearing earrings by Alexander Calder in the photo above.  She also had a wall sculpture by Calder that hung in her bedroom at her villa in Venice.  The necklace is very similar to the Calder sculpture.  I can't find who this necklace is made by because I can't read Japanese, so if anyone knows, please advise.

Image courtesy of the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation

Sunnies by Mercura NYC, all other credits see below next photo.

Vogue Japan, October 2011, Photographer Katja Rahlwes, Stylist Sissy Vian, hijacked the photo from The Lonely Wife Project

Alexander Calder, Silver Beadhead, 1945-46

Peggy used the sculpture as her headboard.

Peggy was known to choose art before anyone else knew they wanted it.  
Which artists would Peggy collect now? Would it be a formaldehyde sculpture of a white unicorn by Damien Hirst?

The Dream, 2008
White foal, glass, steel, resin, silicone and formaldehyde solution.

Or maybe one of Kiki Smith's installations?

Image via The Brooklyn Museum

 Or maybe the work of Jean Marie Othoniel?

Black is beautiful, 2003
Murano glass, 370 x 60 x 50 cm
And yes, I would be happy to bring all of these things back to my villa in Venice, maybe this one as Peggy's is already a museum.

The Villa Sandi

A Picture a Day, Jean Arp

Shell and Head, Jean Arp, 1933

In an effort to inspire myself to start working on my art again, I will be "posting a picture a day" for the next few weeks.  It may be a painting.  It may be a sculpture,  It may be a collage.  I am reading Mistress of Modernism, The Life of Peggy Guggenheim, by Mary V. Dearborn, and it has me thinking about what I like and the different areas I might want to explore. I love art and I love history, so it is turning out to be a very enjoyable and interesting book.

 In 1939-40, at the start of the second World War, Peggy resolved to" buy a picture a day" with an eye toward opening a future museum.  Some of the masterpieces of her collection, such as works by Francis Picabia, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí and Piet Mondrian, were bought at that time. She astonished Fernand Léger by buying his Men in the City on the day that Hitler invaded Norway. She acquired Brancusi’s Bird in Space as the Germans approached Paris, and only then decided to flee the city.  One of the very first pieces she bought was the Jean Arp pictured above.  I like that such an unusual and modern piece was valuable in 1933.  She reportedly paid $3000 and said "The instant I felt it I wanted to own it."

Portrait of Peggy by ManRay, 1924, in a Paul Poiret gown