The Art of This Century Gallery

The Art of This Century Gallery was a pioneering modern art museum and commercial gallery opened by Peggy Guggenheim at 30 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, on October 20, 1942. Designed by the Austrian-American architect, artist, and visionary Frederick Kiesler, the gallery occupied two commercial spaces on the seventh floor of a building in the midtown arts district. It operated until 1947, when Guggenheim returned to Europe. The venue is widely regarded as one of the most influential crucibles for the emergence of Abstract Expressionism and the shift of the art world's center from Paris to New York during and after World War II. Its innovative exhibition design and strategic pairing of established European modernists with emerging American artists fundamentally reshaped twentieth-century art history.

Peggy Guggenheim had opened an earlier gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, in London on January 24, 1938, inspired by the gallery Bernheim-Jeune and referencing her uncle Solomon R. Guggenheim. Her plan to establish a museum for modern art in London, encouraged by Herbert Read, was thwarted by World War II. After returning to New York in 1941, she pursued the project in New York instead. A 160-page catalogue documenting her collection, titled Art of This Century on the suggestion of painter Laurence Vail, was published in May 1942 in a limited edition of 2,500 copies with a cover designed by Max Ernst. On the advice of her friend Bernard J. Reis, a lawyer and tax advisor, Guggenheim integrated her commercial gallery into the non-profit museum for tax purposes, adopting the catalogue title as the institution's name. Her stepson Jimmy Ernst initially served as secretary, later replaced by former gallerist Howard Putzel. The gallery opened without financial assistance on October 20, 1942, in a two-story north-facing loft, with 68 artists represented by 171 works. Guggenheim appeared at the opening in a white evening gown wearing mismatched earrings: one by Alexander Calder symbolizing abstract art, the other by Yves Tanguy representing Surrealism. Admission was set at one dollar, donated to the American Red Cross. The gallery closed in May 1947 when Guggenheim departed for Europe, and representation of her artists was assumed by Betty Parsons.

The gallery's holdings and exhibitions spanned two principal domains: a permanent private collection of European modernism amassed in Europe with the assistance of curator Herbert Read and artist Marcel Duchamp, and temporary exhibitions featuring emerging artists. The permanent collection emphasized Surrealism alongside Cubist and abstract works. The temporary exhibition program, housed in the Daylight Gallery, presented fifty-three exhibitions of 103 artists between the winter of 1942 and summer of 1947, averaging approximately ten exhibitions per year. The program ranged from the opening show in October 1942 through a retrospective on Theo van Doesburg in May 1947. The gallery's distinctive character lay in its deliberate juxtaposition of established European modernists with lesser-known American artists, many of whom received their first New York exposure there. This structure created what became known as the Uptown Group, a circle of male artists who remained in New York during World War II due to exemption from military service or conscientious objector status, alongside some female artists.

The opening exhibition featured major works by pivotal European artists: two paintings by Pablo Picasso, early Cubist works by Georges Braque, pieces by Fernand Léger, Albert Gleizes, and Louis Marcoussis, and a work by Marcel Duchamp. A late oil painting and two large drawings by Piet Mondrian hung alongside Dutch Constructivists and three paintings by Wassily Kandinsky. Three works by Constantin Brâncuși and three sculptures by Alberto Giacometti were displayed, including the 1940 bronze Femme égorgée (plaster 1932). Nine works by Paul Klee were exhibited, with sculptures by Antoine Pevsner accompanied by a work by Naum Gabo. Robert Delaunay and Francis Picabia were each represented by one work. Among Surrealists, Max Ernst and three works by Joan Miró appeared, alongside younger artists including Wolfgang Paalen, Joseph Cornell, Jean Hélion, and Yves Tanguy.

The American roster included William Baziotes, Alexander Calder, Joseph Cornell, David Hare, Hans Hofmann, Gerome Kamrowski, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Charles Seliger, Clyfford Still, Janet Sobel, and Robert De Niro Sr. Pollock received his first solo show in 1943 and an annual stipend from Guggenheim. On January 5, 1943, the gallery inaugurated The Exhibition by 31 Women, considered the first exhibition devoted exclusively to women artists, proposed by Marcel Duchamp. The participating artists included Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Louise Nevelson, Meret Oppenheim, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and others. Guggenheim served on the jury as the only woman alongside André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, James Johnson Sweeney, and Howard Putzel.

The gallery was located at 30 West 57th Street in a building within Manhattan's midtown arts district, near the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, Helena Rubinstein's New Art Center, and numerous commercial galleries. Architect Frederick Kiesler designed four distinct spaces. The Abstract Gallery served as the entrance, featuring undulating walls of ultramarine canvas and a Thalo-blue-painted floor, with paintings suspended from diamond-shaped or inverted-pyramid rope modules, parallel or V-shaped straps, and sculptures hung midair. Kiesler's Correalist furniture functioned as easels and pedestals.

The Surrealist Gallery, one of the most recognized and reproduced exhibition spaces of the twentieth century, was a long black-painted room with hanging curvilinear wall units displaying works on adjustable arms projecting toward viewers. Spotlights illuminated paintings individually in a random electrically controlled sequence; at times the gallery went completely dark accompanied by the sound of an oncoming train.

The Kinetic Gallery was a darkened hall-like space compared to a carnival funhouse, where viewers interacted with displays. A biomorphic spiral-shaped ship's wheel rotated Marcel Duchamp's Box in a Valise, viewed through a peephole. An invisible electric light beam activated a paternoster lift display resembling a mechanical ferris wheel that rotated small Paul Klee works.

The Daylight Gallery, the two front rooms facing picture windows on 57th Street, was a conventional rectilinear white-walled commercial space. It featured Kiesler's mobile Painting Libraries, wheeled easel units with projecting glass rods allowing seated viewing on Correalist Instruments.

The Art of This Century Gallery no longer exists as a physical venue. It closed in 1947 when Peggy Guggenheim returned to Europe, and the space was not preserved. The building at 30 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, was part of the midtown commercial gallery district. There is no ongoing public access to the original site, and the gallery's legacy persists through its documented exhibitions, Kiesler's influential designs, and the subsequent careers of the artists it launched. The gallery's historical significance is maintained through scholarly publications including Susan Davidson and Philip Rylands' Peggy Guggenheim & Frederick Kiesler: The Story of Art of This Century (2004) and Peggy Guggenheim's autobiography Out of This Century (2005).