The Peggy Guggenheim Collection: An extraordinary woman, modern art & the Dorsoduro district

The wealthy Venier family never completed construction work on their palazzo on the Grand Canal, perhaps because they ran out of cash. In the mid-twentieth century, the unfinished palazzo, with its bright and airy rooms, courtyard garden, and terrace with a view onto the loveliest waterway in the world, became the home of American heiress Peggy Guggenheim, one of the century’s most significant collectors of modern art.

It is thanks to the patronage of this extravagant and highly intelligent woman that certain talented, but obscure, young artists like Jackson Pollock were able to create their visionary works and would go on to achieve international recognition. Your guided tour of this wide-ranging collection will take in the Cubism of Picasso and Braque, the abstraction of Kandinsky, the rhythmic colour and movement of Italian Futurism, the perfection of Mondrian, whimsy in Klee’s Magic Garden, Surrealism in Dalí’s “Liquid Desire”, Mirò’s “Dutch Interior” and Magritte’s haunting “Day and Night”, and, of course, the random mark-making of Jackson Pollock.

After your guided tour of the museum, you will stroll beside the sunlit canals of the Dorsoduro neighbourhood, which lies between the Grand Canal and the Zattere, past historic palaces and abandoned monastic buildings. You will gradually make your way towards the great dome of the impressive Baroque Santa Maria della Salute, a shrine which still has a very special place in the hearts of the locals, and you will arrive at the Punta della Dogana, where you can enjoy the stunning view across St Mark’s basin.