In her captivating memoir, Out of This Century: The Informal Memoirs of Peggy Guggenheim, the renowned art collector and socialite takes readers on a fascinating journey through her extraordinary life. From her bohemian upbringing to her pivotal role in shaping the modern art world, Guggenheim's story is one of passion, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to the avant-garde. This intimate and candid account offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a visionary who left an indelible mark on the cultural landscape of the 20th century.

Dearborn's unprecedented access to Guggenheim's family, friends, and papers contributes rich insight to her traumatic childhood in New York, her self-education in the ways of art and artists, her battles with other art-collecting Guggenheims, and her legendary sexual appetites.

A patron of art since the 1930s, Peggy Guggenheim, in a candid self-portrait, provides an insider's view of the early days of modern art, with revealing accounts of her eccentric wealthy family, her personal and professional relationships, and often surprising portrayals of the artists themselves Peggy Guggenheim was born into affluence and a lavish lifestyle. Bored with her seemingly "pedestrian" life in New York, she headed for Europe in 1921, where she woudl sow the seeds for a future as one of modern art's most important and influential figures. In the midst of Europe's avant-garde circles, she reveled in her love affairs with prominent artists and also became a serious collector. Her Guggenheim Jeune gallery in London brought figures such as Brancusi, Cocteau, Kandinsky, and Arp to the forefront of the art scene. Later, her New York gallery would launch the careers of Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell, among others. In her own inimitable and bawdy style, Peggy Guggenheim gives us an insider's glimpse into the modern art world with intimate, often surprising portrayals of its most significant players. Candid, clever, and always entertaining, here is a memoir that captures a valuable chapter in the history of modern art, as well as the spirit of one of its greatest advocates.

One of twentieth-century America’s most influential patrons of the arts, Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979) brought to wide public attention the work of such modern masters as Jackson Pollock and Man Ray. In her time, there was no stronger advocate for the groundbreaking and the avant-garde. Her midtown gallery was the acknowledged center of the postwar New York art scene, and her museum on the Grand Canal in Venice remains one of the world’s great collections of modern art. Yet as renowned as she was for the art and artists she so tirelessly championed, Guggenheim was equally famous for her unconventional personal life, and for her ironic, playful desire to shock. Acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose offers a singular reading of Guggenheim’s life that will enthrall enthusiasts of twentieth-century art, as well as anyone interested in American and European culture and the interrelationships between them. The lively and insightful narrative follows Guggenheim through virtually every aspect of her extraordinary life, from her unique collecting habits and paradigm-changing discoveries, to her celebrity friendships, failed marriages, and scandalous affairs, and Prose delivers a colorful portrait of a defiantly uncompromising woman who maintained a powerful upper hand in a male-dominated world. Prose also explores the ways in which Guggenheim’s image was filtered through the lens of insidious antisemitism.

This first critical assessment of Kay Boyle's long career is both a portrait of the artists and a perceptive appraisal of her work. Boyle has lent her cooperation and support to Spanier's efforts to gather biographical material. Particularly enriching for this study were several meetings and extensive correspondence between author and critic. Spanier draws on hundreds of pages of letters containing a wealth of new information about Boyle's life, works, literary relationships, and current activities. Boyle has provided Spanier with unpublished documents and works in progress, yellowed news clippings and book reviews, and detailed notes in which she reacted to this work. Balancing her role of biographer and critic, Spanier has created a vital, perceptive, and integrated study of the life and work of a remarkable woman. -- From publisher's description.