The Art of Choice: Peggy Guggenheim

This study examines the intersection of personal affinities and aesthetic strategies in the collecting practice of Peggy Guggenheim. Her decisions provide a foundation for understanding the identity of the collector, the logic behind selection, and the broader meaning of the collection itself. By comparing different approaches to art and collecting, the paper explores how Guggenheim positioned herself as a mediator between artistic eras, often anticipating systems of value that would only later gain institutional recognition. As a collector and patron, she challenged the dominant patriarchal frameworks—not through overt feminist critique, but by shifting the terms of participation. Her investments in art were guided less by financial gain and more by the creation of cultural capital. Through actions that foreshadowed museum-like practices, she helped shape a new artistic landscape governed by its own historical and aesthetic logic. This mode of collecting resists categorization within either modernist paradigms or postmodern micro-narratives, and instead aligns with the layered, oscillating sensibility of metamodernism.