Confessions of an Art Addict by Peggy Guggenheim Read Free Book Online Page A

important man since many years collecting and protecting real art through my work and experience, the name of Guggenheim became known for great art and it is very poor taste indeed to make use of it, of our work and fame, to cheapen it to a profit.
    Yours very truly            
    H.R.                        
    P.S. Now our newest publication will not be sent to England for some time to come.
    I soon got into trouble again with the British Customs. Marcel Duchamp had sent me from Paris a sculpture show, consisting of works by Brancusi, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Antoine Pevsner, Arp, his wife, Henri Laurens and Alexander Calder. Henry Moore was torepresent England. But the Customs would not admit the show into England as an art exhibition. It could only be allowed in if the exhibits were admitted as separate pieces of bronze, marble, wood, etc., which would have meant my having to pay heavy duty on them, which I would have done had it come to the worst. This was because of a stupid old law which existed to protect English stone-cutters from foreign competition. It rested with the Director of the Tate Gallery to decide in such cases what was art and what was not. Mr Manson, the Director, refused to pass my show, which he declared was not art. This was really so scandalous that Wyn Henderson got all the art critics to sign a protest against this verdict. As a result, my case was brought up in the House of Commons and we won it.
    From then on, any sculpture, whether abstract or not, could be admitted into England without the approval of the Director of the Tate Gallery. I thus rendered a great service to foreign artists and to England. The press took up the story and the show had marvellous publicity and was a great success.
    Wyn Henderson, who had organized all this, was a remarkable woman, a sort of fat Titian-beauty type. She made everything go like clockwork in the gallery, though she had no previous experience of anything of this kind, being a typographer by profession. She had run several modern presses, and therefore we had the most beautiful catalogues and invitations. She had a lot of commonsense, tact and social grace, remembering the faces of all the people who came to the gallery, whom I never recognized.
    Henry Moore, a very direct simple Yorkshireman of forty years, who was then teaching art to earn his living, was having a great success in London at the time of the sculpture show. He lent us a very large wooden reclining figure, which looked beautiful in the centre of the gallery. I would have liked to have bought it, but it was much too large for my house. I said that had it been smaller it would have pleased me very much. One day, months later, he arrived in the gallery like a travelling salesman, carrying a little handbag. From this he brought out two elegant reclining figures, one in bronze and one in lead, and asked me to choose one. I infinitely preferred the bronze, which I acquired.
    One day a marvellous man in a highly elaborate tweed coat walked into the gallery. He looked like Groucho Marx. He was as animated as a jazz-band leader; which he turned out to be. He showed us his gouaches, which were as musical as Kandinsky’s, as delicate as Klee’s, and as gay as Miró’s. His colour was exquisite and his construction magnificent. His name was John Tunnard. He asked me very modestly if I thought I could give him a show, and then and there I fixed a date. (Later, he told me he couldn’t believe his good luck, he was so used to being turned down.) During this exhibition, which was a great success from every point of view, a woman came into thegallery and asked, ‘Who is this John Tunnard?’ Turning three somersaults, Tunnard, who was in the gallery, landed at this lady’s feet, saying, ‘I am John Tunnard.’ At the end of the show I, amongst many others, bought an oil