‘Art Addict’ reveals newly found audio of Peggy Guggenheim

Starring Peggy Guggenheim. Directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland.

Unrated but contains nudity and frank talk about sex. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 37 minutes.

Bottom line: A fascinating story of the self-described "midwife" of modern art

If you’re interested in art of the 20th century, you will want to see “Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict,” the fascinating story of the self-described “midwife” of modern art. The film, directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, tells the story of the Guggenheim banking-family “black sheep,” a not very attractive Jewish socialite named Marguerite “Peggy” Guggenheim, whose life in 1920s and ’30s Europe and return to the United States after the outbreak of World War II provides a crucial cultural link between European surrealism and expressionism and the birth of American abstract impressionism.

Man Ray took her photo. Picasso insulted her. She slept with Samuel Beckett and married Max Ernst. She gave allowances to Djuna Barnes and others. She calls the Guggenheim Museum “my uncle’s garage.”

But most importantly, Guggenheim founded two art galleries, one in London and one in New York City, and a collection in Venice.

The film comprises a newly discovered 1978-‘79 audio interview between a bemused and affable Guggenheim near the end of her life and biographer Jacqueline Bograd Weld. The archival footage is marvelously illustrative. Among the subjects the film examines is Guggenheim’s mentoring of the young, combative Jackson Pollock.

Among the many talking head interviews in “Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict” is Robert De Niro, who talks about his artist mother and father’s shows at Guggenheim’s gallery in New York City, the first of which he attended at age 3.