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Article: Hilla Rebay: visionary baroness: a recent New York gallery exhibition provided an in-depth look at the paintings, drawings and collages of Hilla Rebay, the tireless, idiosyncratic spirit behind Solomon R. Guggenheim's formation of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which later became the Guggenheim Museum.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Art in America
- Article date:
- September 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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For seven months last year, the exhibition "Brazil, Body & Soul" suffused the Guggenheim Museum in an ecclesiastical aura as polychrome Madonnas and crucifixes climbed the lower tiers of the darkened rotunda and spiraled around a gilded Baroque altar-piece rising 44 feet from the ground floor. It was odd to recall, in the midst of this extravagant spectacle, that the Guggenheim was originally conceived as a temple celebrating not religious statuary but the quasi-religion of non-objective art.
The high priestess of that temple was Hilla Rebay, a German-born aristocrat who became Solomon R. Guggenheim's friend, adviser and possibly lover, and convinced him to ...