Abstraction Endowed

One night last week the traveling band of electric letters around the New York Times building began to spell: GUGGENHEIM GIVES SEVERAL MILLIONS TO. ...

In the split second pause, Times Square loafers thought of almost anything but what followed around the corner: ABSTRACT ART. . . .

Thus Manhattan learned of the fourth and least utilitarian of the great Guggenheim foundations.* Announcement of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation came from the donor's lawyers. Old Mr. Guggenheim was in Europe for consultations with Baroness Hilla Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, who helped him make his collection of pure "nonobjective" paintings, lately shown in Philadelphia (TIME, Feb. 15). Now housed partly in the Guggenheim house at Port Washington, N. Y.. partly in Mr. Guggenheim's apartment at Manhattan's Plaza Hotel, the collection will be the nucleus for a museum of abstract art of which the Baroness was named curator. To educate the U. S. public in the debatable serenities and excitements of painting which represents nothing but colored space, the Foundation is chartered to provide lectureships, scholarships, exhibitions and publications. Wrote Solomon Guggenheim to his new trustees: "I desire to encourage the development of the esthetic sense of our people."

*Others: Daniel Guggenheim Foundation (for research in aeronautics), John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (the famed fellowships), Murry & Leonie Guggenheim Foundation (for dental clinics).

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