Guggenheim Museum

Guggenheim Museum, officially Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, major museum of modern art in New York City. Founded in 1939 as the Museum of Non-objective Art, the Guggenheim is known for its remarkable circular building (1959) designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It holds major exhibitions of the works of contemporary artists. Its permanent collection includes, among many modern works, numerous pieces by Brancusi and Kandinsky. In 1992 the Guggenheim opened a 10-story limestone addition in the rear of its original structure and also began operating a branch in the city's SoHo district. The museum is part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which also controls the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. The gigantic, spectacularly curving, titanium-sheathed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, designed by Frank Gehry and inaugurated in 1997, is also under its aegis. That same year the foundation also opened a much smaller Berlin branch.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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