Guggenheim became a great 20th century art collector and the iconoclastic doyenne of abstract expressionism. Mary Dearborn, who has written biographies of Henry Miller and Norman Mailer, paints a sympathetic portrait of the controversial Bohemian art impresario in ‘Mistress of Modernism’.

Peggy grew up in a gilded palace. She and her two sisters worshipped their handsome father, a notorious ladies’ man. At the age of seven, she was banished from the table for saying, “Papa, you must have a mistress as you stay out so many nights.”

Her father went down with the Titanic when Peggy was thirteen years old. She was heartbroken, later writing: “In a sense I have never recovered, as I suppose I have been searching for my father ever since.”

Throughout her life, Peggy’s low self-esteem and inferiority complex threatened to overwhelm her. When she came into her inheritance she had plastic surgery on her nose with disastrous results.

A thin, nervous, strong-willed young woman, she took a job as an unpaid volunteer in a bookstore which not only sold avant-garde literature, but exhibited and sold unusual art. It was the first step in what would become her life’s work.

When she left for Europe in 1920, Peggy had no idea she would remain there for 23 years. She married the bon vivant, Laurence Vail, in Paris and spent seven years abused by the hard-drinking “King of Bohemia” who fathered her two children, Sindbad and Jezebel (“Pegeen”).

After Vail, Peggy fell in love with the creatively paralysed would-be writer John Holms who died from complications after a simple surgical procedure. Eight weeks after Holms’ death she went home with writer/editor Douglas Garman. Their relationship soon deteriorated as a result of his violent temper and physical abuse.

Despite her often unhappy personal life and lack of formal training, Guggenheim possessed a remarkable eye for art. In 1938 she opened the Guggenheim Jeune gallery in London. Four years later she founded the visionary Art of this Century in New York, bringing together European surrealists and American abstract expressionists.

Visitors were encouraged to treat the gallery as a place to browse: “You were invited to take the pictures in your hands – like a print or a book – and move them back and forth so that you could see a line or a surface more clearly in different kinds of light.”

Art of this Century exhibited works by Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Giacometti, Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko. It brought fame to Jackson Pollock and many others promoted by the self-invented patron. The wife of one of the artists wistfully described these years as “the champagne years – when Art wore a rose…It had a sort of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway quality.”

Peggy Guggenheim had disconcerting relationships with her friends such as writer Djuna Barnes and feminist Emma Goldman, whom she subsidised financially along with artists, relations and friends of friends. Despite her apparent largesse she was often accused of stinginess.

A charismatic, witty woman, she discovered her vocation in art while liberating herself from the conventions of her day. She was sexually voracious, outraging society with her candour and escapades. She had a penchant for artists and included Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Constantin Brancusi, Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp among her lovers. Gore Vidal described Peggy as "the last of Henry James's transatlantic heroines, Daisy Miller with rather more balls".

Dearborn does not overlook Guggenheim’s poor parenting skills and her difficulty in expressing love for her children. Peggy’s son grew up without any ambition and her beautiful daughter committed suicide. The artist Manina was with Pegeen when she said: “If that collection ever goes up in flames, you’ll know who did it.” Manina said, “It was a rival for her mother’s love.”

After the Second World War, Peggy moved to Venice to live out her days as the “last duchess” in a palazzo with a roof terrace overlooking the Grand Canal. She died in 1979 but her famous art collection still draws thousands of visitors every year. The book includes an inventory of Guggenheim's collection from 1942.

Dearborn’s accomplished biography is a thorough, if generous, account of Peggy Guggenheim’s free-spirited and multi-faceted life. She paints a portrait of a troubled, insecure woman with masochistic tendencies, who was simultaneously passionate, talented and determined to leave her mark on the art world. ‘Mistress of Modernism’ vividly encapsulates the fascinating avant-garde universe of modern art, exposing the heady, turbulent lives and times of renowned artists, art collectors and dealers.

Michelle McGrane is a freelance writer, reviewer and poet. She lives in South Africa.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.