Who founded the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1937?

Solomon R. Guggenheim founded the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1937.

Guggenheim established the foundation to promote and support modern art. He had begun collecting nonobjective painting under the influence of artist and adviser Hilla von Rebay, whose advocacy strongly shaped the foundation's early direction.

Before the Fifth Avenue museum existed, the foundation's collection was presented at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which opened in Manhattan in 1939. The foundation later commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright's permanent museum building, completed after years of planning and opened in 1959.

The foundation's name is sometimes confused with Peggy Guggenheim, Solomon's niece. Peggy was a major collector in her own right and founded the Venetian museum collection, but Solomon founded the organization that became the Guggenheim Foundation and bears his name.