Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979)—a major patron of 20th-century artists and an avid collector—assembled a premier collection of art from the first half of the last century, featuring works by Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Constantin Brâncuși, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Alberto Giacometti, and Marcel Duchamp.
In 1938, she opened her first modern art gallery in London, followed by the iconic *Art of This Century* gallery in New York. After a brief marriage to her third husband, the artist Max Ernst, Guggenheim returned to Europe and settled in Venice; she lived there for the rest of her life and established what is now one of Italy’s most visited modern art museums. *At the Peak of the Century* is an incredibly candid and rich account of the life of one of the art world's most influential women.