Pegeen Vail at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice

Pegeen Vail, At the Seaside

Pegeen Vail “At the Seaside”

Painting - Oil on Canvas (80.7 x 108.7 cm) 1945

Pegeen Vail Guggenheim was born on August 18, 1925, in Switzerland.

She is the daughter of Peggy Guggenheim and painter Laurence Vail.

She spent her childhood in France with her parents, then stayed with her mother when her parents separated in the early 1930s.

As she raised in art and living among artists, her talent only required to practise.

From the age of 12, she was exhibited at her mother's gallery in London as part of the exhibition "Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Children".

Pegeen Vail, Intimate Conversation

Pegeen Vail “Intimate Conversation”

Painting - Pastel on Paper (31.9 x 49 cm) 1960

In contact with Yves Tanguy, they even exchanged their works when she was only 12 years old.

In 1943 she participated in the exhibition "Exhibition by 31 Women" held at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery in New York City.

Later, she made friends with the painter Jean Hélion, with whom she subsequently married.

In 1945, she participated in a new exhibition "The Women" organized in New York by her mother.

That same year she was entitled to a solo exhibition, still at Peggy Guggenheim's "Art of This Century" in New York.

Pegeen Vail, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni

Pegeen Vail “Palazzo Venier dei Leoni”

Painting - Pastel on Paper (23.9 x 65 cm) 1950

Her naive style, full of colours and influenced by surrealism and artists she had been able to visit thanks to her mother's relationships, shows a world of dolls, real and unreal at the same time.

Raymond Queneau said about Pegeen Vail's works:

“The world that Pegeen offers us asserts itself fairly more real than the real one since it seems closer to the Terrestrial Paradise.

No guilt fails to tarnish his colours, overwhelm his drawing.”
Raymond Queneau

Pegeen Vail, Clementine

Pegeen Vail and Egidio Costantini “Clementine”

Sculpture - Glass (47 x 23.5 cm) 1966

Her marriage was not as happy as she hoped; depressed, she became an alcoholic and followed several psychoanalysis treatments in the mid-1950s.

She then returned to Venice and moved to her mother's house at the Palazzo Venier, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection's headquarters.

In 1957 she accompanied Peggy Guggenheim to London for the exhibition dedicated to Francis Bacon at the Hanover Gallery and met the artist Ralph Rumney.

She married Rumney, and they lived for a year on Île Saint-Louis in Paris before returning to Venice.

In the early 1960s, she met the artist Egidio Costantini with whom she made several glass sculptures.

In 1966 she produced several exhibitions of her works in Canada, Philadelphia and Stockholm.

As her artistic success became an international reality, she entered a new phase of depression and died in Paris on March 1 1967, after taking too large a dose of medicines.

Pegeen Vail, Clementine

Pegeen Vail and Egidio Costantini “Clementine”

Sculpture - Glass (47 x 23.5 cm) 1966

About her daughter, Peggy Guggenheim wrote:

“My dear Pegeen, who was not only a daughter but also a mother, friend and sister to me...

Her unexpected and mysterious death leaves me distressed.

There was no one in the world I loved so much.

I feel like the light has left my life.

Pegeen was a talented primitive painter.

For years, I encouraged her talent and sold her paintings.

She was beginning to have real success, with exhibitions this winter in Canada, Stockholm and Philadelphia.”
Peggy Guggenheim — "Out of This Century" - London 1979