Audiovisual Recordings collection

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was founded in 1937 and is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of the art of our time though the network of its museums, programs, and initiatives. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opened to the public in 1959. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection was open to the public seasonally since 1951, then year-round since 1979. The Guggenheim Foundation retains ownership of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, while providing curatorial direction and management services to Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

In 1988, Thomas Krens succeeded Thomas M. Messer as director. Under Krens, the Guggenheim increased the number of exhibitions it organized as well as the breadth of its operations. In 1992 the Guggenheim Museum SoHo opened in downtown Manhattan, and in 1996 it began to focus its programming on art and technology. The Guggenheim Museum SoHo closed in 2001, the same year in which the Guggenheim Foundation expanded its international presence with the opening of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, in partnership with the Basque Government, and the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, in partnership with Deutsche Bank. Also in 2001, the now defunct Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, operated in conjunction with the State Hermitage Museum, opened in Las Vegas.