Peggy Guggenheim bought the Venetian palace that became her collection’s home in 1949.
The building is Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an unfinished eighteenth-century palace on Venice’s Grand Canal. Guggenheim purchased it after the Second World War and made it her residence as well as the setting for her growing collection of modern art.
Its low, unusual appearance reflects the fact that the palace was never completed according to its original plan. The house and garden provided a distinctive setting for works by artists including Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Salvador Dalí.
Guggenheim began showing parts of the collection to the public in Venice during the early 1950s. After her death in 1979, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation continued to operate the site as the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.