Support the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
Together for art, culture, and beauty.
“I dedicated myself to my collection. A collection means hard work. It was what I wanted to do and I made it my life’s work. I am not an art collector. I am a museum.”
Peggy Guggenheim, in Peggy Guggenheim and Her Friends (Milan: Berenice, 1994)

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection reopened to the public on June 2 after having been closed for 86 days. We affectionately refer to the museum as the PGC. It is a special place that now needs your help following the mandatory closure, and as we begin a new page in the museum’s history.

Covid-19 has changed our lives and the PGC. The health emergency and economic difficulties have not only interrupted the museum’s daily activities but also forced us to review our upcoming educational programs. It is a slow restart; the museum is now open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only. Our staff has enthusiastically stepped in so that we may save costs on outsourced gallery security attendants, as we find ourselves compelled to review our future, cancel planned activities, and limit our expenses to those absolutely necessary for survival. We are committed to thriving, not just surviving.

Thriving means carrying out our mission, which is to preserve the legacy of Peggy Guggenheim through education and the promotion of art as a tool for personal growth and the development of critical thinking. We consider art to be paramount and accessible to everyone. For you and for future generations, we want to open the museum 6 days a week so that we may guarantee the continuity of our free activities, as well as temporary exhibitions and catalogs. This is the life of the museum.

At the PGC, we believe in the transformative power of art and its ability to affect change.

In order to offer guests a pleasant and safe visit, we have capped and reduced admissions while tripling the number of security gallery attendants in the museum. We decided to act as gallery attendants so that we could sustain the museum economically and ease the budget drastically impacted by 13 weeks of closure. The loss of revenue from the ticket office and the two museum shops, during months which historically experience large attendance figures, amounts to two million euros. For a non-profit organization such as the PGC, the Italian branch of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, this means the absence of resources to carry out its educational mission.

It is important that we continue to guarantee the variety and quality of our activities.

In addition to returning to our regular opening schedule, it is important that we continue to guarantee the variety and quality of our activities. Admission for children under 10, Kids Days labs, activities for the visually impaired and senior citizens, and public programs related to exhibitions are all services which we have always offered free of charge and must remain so. Over the past five years, as many as 110,000 children have visited the PGC free with their teachers and parents. In addition, we have offered visitors 1,700 hours of educational presentations about Peggy Guggenheim and the museum.

Our Foundation is financed almost entirely by the revenue from the ticket office and the two museum shops and receives no government funding, but has always benefitted from the extraordinary support of our Advisory Board, Institutional Patrons, Guggenheim Intrapresæ group and museum members. We extend a heartfelt thank you to all of them as they continue to support the museum with passion and tenacity.

We are fully committed to the PGC and working harder than ever. We want to continue to forge forward to ensure the quality, professionalism and integrity that have always distinguished the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

Please help us by supporting the museum with a donation. Even the smallest gesture makes an important impact. Together for the PGC. Together for art.

With our deepest thanks,

Karole P. B. Vail
Direttrice, e lo Staff della Peggy Guggenheim Collection