Notes & Asides

We are here to celebrate a book and its author. The safest way to taxonomize Peter Lawson-Johnston is to say simply that he is related to-everybody. But that a particular grandfather, who began a particular accumulation of art, and a particular cousin, who designated Peter to take charge of the hugest private collection of art in the world, are the central characters in the book, Growing Up Guggenheim.

This chronicle of a museum that seems to add branches every year is a joy to read and a wonder to contemplate. It is, moreover, a volume that is beautifully produced by ISI Books, which specializes in productions of enduring importance, and gives us here not only the story behind them, but also pictures from the Guggenheim museums in New York, in Venice, in Berlin, in Bilbao, and in Las Vegas. The concatenation of acuity, capitalist insight, and artistic foresight that gave us the Guggenheim collection is best captured by an episode in this book, where Great-grandmother Guggenheim reproaches her twelve-year-old daughter for extravagance when she brought home a painting for which she had paid $5 from her monthly allowance. It was an oil by Vincent van Gogh.

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We are here to celebrate a book and its author. The safest way to taxonomize Peter Lawson-Johnston is to say simply that he is related to-everybody. But that a particular grandfather, who began a particular accumulation of art, and a particular cousin, who designated Peter to take charge of the hugest private collection of art in the world, are the central characters in the book, Growing Up Guggenheim.

This chronicle of a museum that seems to add branches every year is a joy to read and a wonder to contemplate. It is, moreover, a volume that is beautifully produced by ISI Books, which specializes in productions of enduring importance, and gives us here not only the story behind them, but also pictures from the Guggenheim museums in New York, in Venice, in Berlin, in Bilbao, and in Las Vegas. The concatenation of acuity, capitalist insight, and artistic foresight that gave us the Guggenheim collection is best captured by an episode in this book, where Great-grandmother Guggenheim reproaches her twelve-year-old daughter for extravagance when she brought home a painting for which she had paid $5 from her monthly allowance. It was an oil by Vincent van Gogh.