Ernst, Kandinsky, Klee, Magritte, Man Ray, Miro, Mondrian, Picasso, and Vail (her first husband).
Art of This Century was comparable to the Armory Show of 1913, with its scandalous modern content that rocked popular imagination and drew large crowds. Peggy's gallery was interactive, making art fun and accessible to a general audience rather than just to elite wealthy buyers. It was a highly democratic experience, with the idea that it would be an art center where ideas would be freely exchanged. Its goal was to show that art was not static. The mission of the gallery was to serve the future, not to record the past, and its greatest contribution was that it showed unproven artists.
Peggy Guggenheim was one of only two female gallery owners in New York at the time of opening Art of This Century. She exhibited an all-women's art show, “Exhibition by 31 Women” in January 1943, with the works of Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Meret Oppenheim (who had shocked MOMA viewers with her fur-lined tea set). She has said that her single greatest discovery was Jackson Pollock, whose career she launched with a one-man show.
A Bohemian Painter's Party
Peggy Guggenheim's discovery, Jackson Pollock, is credited with the invention of “action painting.” In action painting, Pollock used sticks instead of brushes to drip and fling paint onto a giant canvas, which was not upright on an easel but laid out flat on the floor of his barn studio. He hovered over the canvas and became part of the painting. The recipes below take off on the painting theme to create an artist's palette for your guests' palates!
The recipe for Paint “Brushes” with Paint Pot Dipping Sauces mimics Pollock's technique because the “brushes” have no brush, just the stick part. The different colored dipping sauces are arranged to resemble paint pots. The sauce flavors are honey-mustard, lemony ranch, zesty barbecue, olive-marinara and sesame-soy. The Modern Art Tart is an eggplant pizza with Asian flavors. It is garnished like an abstract modern art piece with various forms and vibrant colors. For dessert, the Jackson Pollock Ice Cream Canvases give your guests a chance to create their own paintings of vanilla ice cream with colorful sauces of caramel, butterscotch, chocolate, and strawberry. The Painter's Palette Cookies complete the meal and the theme with a sugar cookie cutout in the shape of a paint palette and painted with a mixture of egg yolk and food coloring. (Renaissance artists painted with a similar mixture of egg yolk and tempera pigment.)
Paint “Brushes” with Paint Pot Dipping Sauces
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
18 hard breadsticks
18 slices bacon
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ cup Dijon mustard
¼ cup honey
½ cup ranch dressing
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ cup barbecue sauce
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper sauce
½ cup marinara sauce
2 tablespoons chopped black olives
½ cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon sliced green onions
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with foil and set aside.
2 Wrap each breadstick with a slice of bacon in a spiral so the bacon is wound around the breadstick from end to end.
3 Spread the brown sugar out on a piece of foil and sprinkle the cumin over it. Mix to combine with your fingers and gently squeeze out any lumps in the brown sugar.
4 Roll the bacon-wrapped breadsticks in the brown sugar mixture to lightly coat them and place them on the foil-lined baking sheet.
5 Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the pan and cool on lettuce leaves (the grease can drain and they won't stick to lettuce like they would to paper towels.)
6 Combine the Dijon mustard and the honey for one dipping sauce.
7 Combine the ranch dressing and lemon juice for the second dipping sauce.
8 Combine the barbecue sauce with the Worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper sauce for the third dipping sauce.
9 Combine the marinara sauce with the chopped black olives for the fourth dipping sauce.
10 Combine the soy sauce, sesame oil, and sliced green onions for the fifth dipping sauce.
11 Put the “brushes” in a cylindrical vessel, such as a vase or a clean paint bucket, and arrange the five dipping sauces in small bowls or ramekins around the brushes.
Modern Art Tart
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
1 prebaked pizza shell
2 Japanese eggplants
¼ cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
¼ cup roasted red bell pepper strips
½ cup hoisin sauce
¼ cup sliced green onions
¼ cup smoked Gouda cheese, shredded
2 tablespoons chopped peanuts
fresh cilantro leaves
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2 Slice eggplants into ¼-inch rounds and brush them with oil. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper and grill them on a grill pan or an outdoor grill. Be sure to cook them until they are tender enough to eat and try to get striped grill marks on them for flavor and presentation.
3 Put the pizza shell on a pizza pan and spread the hoisin sauce over it.
4 Arrange the grilled eggplant slices over the sauce, then scatter the roasted red bell pepper strips and sliced green onions over the eggplant. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the tart.
5 Bake the tart for 15 minutes, until the cheese has melted and everything is heated through. Remove the tart from oven.
6 Garnish the tart with the chopped peanuts and fresh cilantro leaves and cut it into 6 wedges.
Jackson Pollock Ice Cream Canvases
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
6 ounces cream
