My exhibition had enormous publicity and the pavilion was one of the most popular of the Biennale. I was terribly excited by all this, but what I enjoyed most was seeing the name of Guggenheim appearing on the maps in the public gardens next to the names of Great Britain, France, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Poland . . . I felt as though I were a new European country. Peggy Guggenheim, Out of this Century.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the exhibition of the collection of Peggy Guggenheim in the Greek Pavilion at the 24th Venice Biennale. In order to commemorate this milestone event in the history of 20th-century art, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents an homage exhibition 1948: The Biennale of Peggy Guggenheim, curated by Gražina Subelytė, Assistant Curator, installed in the Project Rooms.

The exhibition will partially recreate the setting of the pavilion through documents, photographs, letters, and for the first time a three-dimensional model of the pavilion installation. The layout had been designed by the distinguished Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa, who collaborated with the Biennale from 1948 to 1972. In 1948 the presentation of the collection offered the European public the opportunity to catch up with the latest artistic developments and to see the New York artists who would dominate the art scene through the 1950s. The present exhibition will therefore offer the opportunity to re-examine this watershed event in Guggenheim’s career and in the history of the Biennale.