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

were to be included in my Tanguy show. I met him a few months later in Paris and was surprised to find him exactly the opposite, physically, to what I had imagined he would be. I had expected to meet a little black hunchback. Instead of this, he turned out to be a big fat blond of my own age.
    At first he was nearly incoherent, but little by little I realized the great passion for modern art and classical music that lurked behind his incomprehensible conversation and behaviour. He immediately took me in hand and escorted me, or rather forced me to accompany him, to all the artists’ studios in Paris. He also made me buy innumerable things that I didn’t want, but he found me many paintings that I did need, and usually ones of the highest quality. He used to arrive in the morning with several things under his arm for my approval, and was hurt when I did not buy them. If I found or bought paintings ‘behind his back’, as he must surely have considered any independent action on my part, he was even more offended.
    He and Nellie disliked each other as only rivals of extreme passion can. Of course, everyone in Paris knew that I was in the market, and, I suppose because of the war, were more than ever anxious to sell paintings. I was chased unmercifully. My phone rang all day, and people even brought paintings to my bedside in the morning before I rose.
    I found three wonderful paintings by Max Ernst at adealer’s on the Left Bank, and bought them at once. One of these was ‘The Kiss’, a painting that was later exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art as a twentieth-century masterpiece. The year before, Putzel had taken me to Ernst’s studio to buy a painting, but there had been no sale at that time. Ernst had a terrific reputation for his beauty, his charm and his success with women, besides being so well known for his Surrealist paintings and collages. He was very good looking, though nearly fifty. He had white hair and big blue eyes and a handsome beak-like nose resembling a bird’s. He was exquisitely made. He talked very little, so I was forced to carry on a continuous chatter. At the feet of Ernst sat his beautiful lady love and pupil, Leonora Carrington. They looked like Nell and her grandfather in The Old Curiosity Shop.
    I tried to buy a painting of Ernst’s, but the one I wanted belonged to Leonora, and another one, for some unknown reason, was declared by Putzel to be too cheap. I ended up instead by buying one of Leonora’s. She was unknown at that time, but full of imagination in the best Surrealist manner and always painted animals and birds. This canvas, which was called ‘The Horses of Lord Candlestick’, portrayed four horses of four different colours in a tree. Everyone was delighted by this purchase.
    For years I had wanted to buy a Brancusi bronze, but had not been able to afford one. Now the moment seemed to have arrived for this great acquisition. I spent monthsbecoming more and more involved with Brancusi before this sale was actually accomplished. I had known him for sixteen years, but never dreamed I was to get into such complications with him. It was very difficult to talk price to Brancusi, and if you ever had the courage to do so, you had to expect him to ask you some monstrous sum. I was aware of this, and hoped my excessive friendship with him would make things easier. But in spite of all this, we ended up in a terrible row when he asked me for four thousand dollars for the ‘Bird in Space’.
    Brancusi’s studio was in a cul-de-sac. It was a huge workshop, filled with his enormous sculptures, and looked like a cemetery, except that the sculptures were much too big to be on graves. Next to this big room was a little one where he actually worked. The walls were covered with every conceivable instrument necessary for his work. In the centre was a furnace in which he heated his instruments and melted bronze. In this furnace he also cooked