The Guggenheim Museum - Solomon R. Guggenheim's Great Gift to New York City

New York is more than America's largest city: it hasongoing basis. Recent exhibitions have included
been and continues to be the inspiration behind muchvarious showings of Russian and socialist art, Robert
of the country's most enduring pieces of art andMapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition, David Smith:
literature. From Langston Hughes to Jonathan SafranA Centennial and the images of Baghdad-born artist
Foer, and Jackson Pollock to Mark Rothko, New YorkZaha Hadid. Its future planned showcases include the
City has been the thriving hub of many an Americanwork of Lucio Fontana, and Spanish Painting from El
cultural movement since the beginning of the 1900s.Greco to Picasso. This eclectic range of artists and
This fact is made even more evident by the city'sartistic works demonstrates the ongoing commitment
wide array of museums and art galleries, the mostof the Guggenheim Museum to its original goal, to
prominent of which are The Museum of Modern Artshowcase the work of new modernism, whilst still
(MOMA), The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Artembracing new forms of modern art in the
and the Guggenheim Museum, among a host oftwenty-first century. Although "high" modern and
others.Both artistically and architecturally, New York'spostmodern art have been the main artistic lines
Guggenheim Museum (technically called The Solomonpursued by the Guggenheim, it has also been host to
R. Guggenheim Museum) is one of the city's mosta variety of commercial art, including seasons
interesting landmarks and artistic forums. The eminentexhibiting motorcycles and Giorgio Armani suits.The
novelist E.B. White once said, "New York is to theGuggenheim Museum in New York is part of the
nation what the white spire is to the village," and itSolomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, a non-profit
might be possible to say that, artistically speaking,organisation founded in 1937 by eminent philanthropist
the white spire of New York is the Guggenheim.Solomon R. Guggenheim and artist Hilla von Rebay.
Situated at the corners of 89th Street and 5thSince the establishment of the first Guggenheim in
Avenue in Manhattan's Upper East Side, its architectNew York, the foundation has gone on to open
Frank Lloyd Wright set out to make the building lookfurther museums in Bilbao, Venice, Berlin and Las
like what has been described as "a white ribbonVegas, and is in the process of establishing another
curled into a cylindrical stack," and was intent on hisGuggenheim in Abu Dhabi. For the artistic holiday
avant-garde design making the Metropolitan Museummaker, a perfect vacation idea might be a trip around
of Art look like "a Protestant barn". Though widelythe world to all the Guggenheim museums. This idea
condemned at the time, the building is now seen asis not even as expensive as it might seem: for
one of New York's finest - as is often the case withexample, there are Hilton Hotels in all of these cities,
the best pieces of architecture.Originally set up inand using the Hilton Honors rewards system,
1937 as "The Museum of Non-Objective Painting", thetravelling art fans can use their accumulated points to
Guggenheim was principally established to exhibitreclaim hotel rewards as well as air miles with a
work by early modernists, like Piet Mondrian andvariety of different airlines, to make their worldwide
Wassily Kandinsky. In particular, it continues to exhibitGuggenheim tour a vacation with a difference.
the work of Kandinsky and Jackson Pollock on an