In the 1940s New York was the crucible for post-war American and European art, and at the heart of this was Peggy Guggenheim and her remarkable museum/gallery, made instantly the most sensational venue of the avant garde in New York by Frederick Kieslers visionary architectural design. This is the never-before-written story of "Art of This Century"--the name Peggy gave to both her collection (now part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and on permanent view in Venice, Italy) and to her 57th Street Gallery, Kieslers masterpiece, where the careers of artists such as William Baziotes, David Hare, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Charles Seliger, and Clyfford Still were launched. The essays in this volume recount the formation of Peggys collection and reconstruct for the first time the plan and design of Art of This Century and analyze its place in Kieslers long career in architecture, theatre design, sculpture, and theories of perception. They also assemble reactions of the press; set the record straight for the first time with new evidence about Pollocks largest-ever painting, Mural (1943); and document the 55 exhibitions that Peggy organized at Art of This Century from 1942-1947. The 398-page publication is comprehensively illustrated and includes 80 color plates of a selection of Peggys collection, Kieslers drawings and designs, and numerous installation photographs of the exhibition.