"A Look into the Privileged World of the American Aristocracy of the Early Twentieth Century Flora Miller Biddle was born a blue-blood. The granddaughter of the Whitney museum founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, her childhood played out in a sort of Wharton landscape as she was shielded from the woes of the world. But money itself is not the source of happiness. Glimpses into the elegance of a Vanderbilt ball thrown by her great-grandparents and...

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,...

A colorful character who was not only ahead of her time but helped to define it, Peggy Guggenheim was an heiress to her family fortune who became a central figure in the modern art movement. As she moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th century, she collected not only art, but artists. Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp as well as countless others....

"One woman of the 20th century who continues to fascinate and achieve an ever-growing popularity is Peggy Guggenheim. Here, at last, is the re-publication of her personal biography. Art patron extraordinaire, who effortlessly combined the personal and professional (indeed, they were almost indistinguishable), her life was marked by drama and adventure. Every aspect of that extraordinary life is reproduced in this lavishly illustrated volume, beginning...

Charles Lang Freer, whose original gift to the nation in 1906 formed the basis of a singular collection of Asian art, realized in his collection a link between East and West matched only in James McNeill Whistler's Peacock Room. On the occasion of the opening of the renovated Freer galleries at the Smithsonian, this book is a celebration of the man. It is part biography and part catalog, detailing both the development of a connoisseur and the creation...

Roy Neuberger's passion for investing is equaled only by his love for fine art which he has collected for over 70 years. "The Passionate Collector follows Neuberger's journey from obscurity to preeminence as a patron of the arts. In this compelling book, he shares his adventures in pursuit of fine art, his views on the influential artists of our time, and his approach to collecting great art.

Defying social and family expectations, the wealthy, often eccentric Alice Pike Barney (1857-1931) zestfully committed herself to the arts and became known for her lively art salons, bohemian lifestyle, and unusual family. Alice and her counterparts in other cities represented a new social type: women who lived proper upper-class lives but did not follow the rules using their wealth and privilege to buy themselves freedoms and to promote causes the...