Peggy Guggenheim marched to the beat of her own drum. I found out just how independent she was by reading her biography Mistress of Modernism: The Life of Peggy Guggenheim by Mary Dearborn during a trip to Venice, Guggenheim’s chosen home town. I bought it in the museum bookstore at Palazzo Venier dei Leoni—the home she bought and filled with modern art, now the Guggenheim Collection.

I was engrossed in the book for much of the trip, finally finishing it as evening was softening the light reflecting from every watery surface during my last day there. Listening to the bells of the Basilica pummel the air with resplendent sound as I walked around town, I wondered if she heard forlornness in their pealing as she sashayed through the intentionally spare rooms of her palazzo, her handmade sandals slapping the marble and the fabric of her caftans flowing behind her. She is one of the women who fascinate me for her dogged desire to be different. When I write about her, the posts are filed under this tag.