Page 38 - "he 2020 Guggenheim issue of World of Art Contemporary Art Magazine

THANNHAUSER COLLECTION
In 1963, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s holdings
were dramatically enriched when the foundation received
a portion of Justin K. Thannhauser’s prized collection of
PANZA COLLECTION
Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and modern French
Between 1990 and 1992, the Guggenheim acquired,
masterpieces as a permanent loan and promised gift.
through purchase and gift, over 350 works of Minimalist,
These paintings and sculptures formally entered the
Post-Minimalist, and Conceptual art from the renowned
collection in 1978, two years after Thannhauser’s death,
collection of Giuseppe Panza di Biumo. Widely
and were augmented by additional gifts from his widow,
acknowledged as one of the most important single
Hilde, between 1981 and 1991. The Thannhauser bequest
concentrations of American art of the 1960s and 1970s,
provided an important historical survey of the period
the Panza Collection gave the Guggenheim depth and
directly antedating that represented by the Guggenheim’s
quality in postwar art commensurate with the strength
original holdings, allowing the museum to tell the story of
of its prewar holdings. Its acquisition may be seen as
modern art from its 19th-century roots for the first time.
an extension of the Guggenheim’s founding mission to
collect and promote abstract art. At the same time it
looked forward, allowing the museum to represent the
most immediate historical roots of the expanded and
pluralistic field of post-1960s art.
In 2010, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum launched
the Panza Collection Initiative, a grant-funded project to
address the long-term preservation and future exhibition
of artworks in this collection.

Installation view, Thannhauser Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York, Ongoing. Photo: David Heald

THE ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE FOUNDATION GIFT
In 1992, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation named the
Guggenheim Foundation the recipient of approximately
200 of Mapplethorpe’s finest photographs and unique
objects. Realized in several stages between 1993 and
Installation of greens crossing greens (to Piet Mondrian who lacked 1998, the gift made the Guggenheim one of the most
green), 1966, at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo, Dan Flavin (1995–96).
© 2011 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; courtesy comprehensive public repositories of this important
David Zwirner, New York. Photo: David Heald American artist’s work, and also inaugurated the
museum’s photography collection and exhibition program.

Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition, Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York, July 1–August 28, 2005. Photo: David Heald

38 WORLD of ART