Save Venice contributed to the campaign for the conservation of the gates in 2016 with funding from Cat Jagger Pollon in honor of Frederick Ilchman.

In 1960, Peggy Guggenheim commissioned American sculptor Claire Falkenstein (1908–1997) to produce gates for the land entrance to her home in Venice, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. They are composed of welded iron rods forming a metal webbing that encases large, irregular pieces of Venetian glass in varied colors. Called the New Gates of Paradise, these works are listed as objects of Italian national patrimony by the Italian Ministry of Culture as a historic part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Falkenstein worked frequently with metal, creating abstract sculptures that were simultaneously solid and insubstantial given their often delicate, web-like form. She drew great inspiration from Einstein’s theories, as can be observed in her explorations of space and matter through sculptural media.

Falkenstein’s gates were also the focal point of an exhibition in honor of the artist that was held at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice from January 22 to April 4, 2016, in collaboration with the Falkenstein Foundation in Los Angeles.

For select projects, conservation dossiers in Italian containing limited textual and photographic documentation may be available for consultation by appointment at the Venice office of Save Venice and the Rosand Library & Study Center. For inquiries, please contact us at venice@savevenice.org.

Claire Falkenstein (1908–1997)
New Gates of Paradise
1961, iron and glass
277 x 90 cm; 277 x 91.2 cm

Peggy Guggenheim Collection: Homepage

Peggy Guggenheim Collection: Link to the Work

Barbero, Luca Massimo, ed. Omaggio a Claire Falkenstein/Homage to Claire Falkenstein. Venice: Peggy Guggenheim Collection, 2016.