We've got a live one here, folks. The Marchesa Luisa Casati was a true eccentric, another Bohemian like Peggy Guggenheim who led a romantic life - though hers was ultimately sadder. by Augustus Edwin John, 1919 Now, this entry I must start with a disclaimer. When The Magic Attic Admires a person or thing, the admiration doesn't extend to everything they did or said, every decision they made. The admiration is usually limited to their willingness to be publicly, genuinely, t

Vincent Price with his art collection, 1940s Yes, Vincent Price! And while I am A Halloween Girl and I've called him one of my "October boyfriends" for a while (I see a LOT of him, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee every October) that's not even why! I mean, there's a lot there to admire. He had a classic, upwardly mobile Old Hollywood career throughout the '30s and '40s - Dragonwyck, Laura, etc. - and was then graylisted during the McCarthy witch hunts . This altered the

In my very own city, there is a huge, interactive art installation (they call themselves a museum) in a former strip mall in an unfashionable end of town called "Otherworld." Otherworld is the creation of more than 40 artists who created 32,000 square feet worth of art, from ceiling to floor, constructing a mystery for visitors to solve as they walk (and crawl) through and did it all using the wildest black, sodium vapor, and other lighting and neon, fluorescent, and glow i

The beginning of a series introducing you to people, places, and things that are wild, colorful, Bohemian, weird, and wonderful. Peggy Guggenheim was all of the above. The daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, the man who went down on the Titanic "dressed like a gentleman," she was born into wealth. She wasn't a lackadaisical dilettante heiress who just enjoyed the inheritance, though. Peggy had a vision, and that vision was art. She was focused on spreading it far and wide and in