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| Visions & Revisions |
Growing the Guggenheim
12/01/2005
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As a child, Peter Lawson-Johnston played at the feet of his grandfather, Solomon
Guggenheim, both at the family’s summer home in Seabright, N.J., and in his
grandparents’ suite at the Plaza Hotel. These youthful visits afforded
Lawson-Johnston his first encounters with the nonrepresentational—or
abstract—art collection that has become the family’s legacy. Yet, because of his
mother’s nomadic lifestyle, thriftiness (for all save her beloved horses and
cars) and, eventually, her multiple marriages, Peter grew up largely unaware of
his family’s wealth and legendary art collection.
In his recent biography,
Growing Up Guggenheim, Lawson-Johnston recounts his ascent from sales manager of
a distant family mining concern in the mountains of North Carolina to the heart
of the Guggenheim enterprise in New York, where pivotal relationships with
family members and leaders in the art world shaped his life and work. He spoke
with Worth managing editor Marianne Cotter about his ongoing struggles to gain
financial solvency for the museums, maintain the integrity of the collection and
spread the Guggenheim “brand” to unlikely locations around the world—even Las
Vegas.
Your biography is unique in that it is organized around five individuals:
your grandfather, Solomon; your two second cousins, Peggy and Harry; and two
museum directors, Tom Messer and Tom Krens.
In writing the book, I wanted to share not only what it was like to grow up
as a Guggenheim, but also to describe my relationships with several people who
influenced not only me, but the development of the museum. Solomon, of course,
collected the art and built the first museum. His nephew, Harry, inherited the
business and had to make some very tough decisions at times. He had the
unenviable task as president of the Guggenheim Museum of firing the Baroness
Hilla Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, the painter who originally spurred my grandfather
to start collecting art. Harry also had to intervene between Frank Lloyd Wright,
who designed the building, and James Johnson Sweeney, the director who succeeded
the baroness. Frank Lloyd Wright thought he should be hanging the paintings,
which Sweeney didn’t like at all. Peggy, of course, was a passionate collector
of modern art, but estranged from the family. She housed her collection in
Venice, Italy. Harry and Tom Messer were eventually able to convince her to
leave the collection to the Guggenheim Foundation for safekeeping when she
died.
In addition to family members, I talk about two Guggenheim directors,
Tom Messer and Tom Krens, both of whom I worked with when I was president and
then chairman of the board. Each was instrumental in the growth of the
Guggenheim.
My involvement has always concerned the museum’s finances. When
I was president of the board, we all became very worried about the endowment.
Then Ronald Perelman came forward and said that if he could become president and
take my place, he’d give $20 million. So I moved aside and became chairman. Then
Peter Lewis said he would give $50 million to be chairman. I was happy both
times to move aside, all in the best interests of the museum’s growth. If people
want to have their name associated with the museum with a title and are willing
to put up the money, why, that’s the main thing.
Harry Guggenheim, Solomon’s successor, whom you did not know growing up,
chose you to follow in his footsteps as family patriarch. You must have worked
hard to earn his confidence.
After years in the mining business, I moved to New York in the early 1960s to
be president of Pacific Tin Consolidated—a Guggenheim company—and found myself
working on the same floor as Harry. People who knew that my mother was a
Guggenheim were always asking me what was going on at the museum, and I felt I
should know more about it. Harry knew my mother, of course, and my half-brother,
Michael, through their common love of horse racing. I had never developed an
interest in horses. Still, I wanted to meet Harry.
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