Producers of the amazing pre-tour production of 'Woman before a glass', the incredible life and times of Peggy Guggenheim, one of the most influential art collectors and bonne vivante of the twentieth century, have announced a wonderful 2 for 1 ticket offer for the second weekend of the play.

This is a great opportunity for local residents and visitors to the region to enjoy this fascinating one woman play starring local icon Diane Cilento, written by Lanie Robertson and directed by Kate Gaul. 

As you would expect the reviews of the play in all the local press from the first weekend and Diane's exquisite portrayal of this colourful character have been sensational and the producers are keen to encourage full houses over the remaining three performances this weekend to ensure, that after a short tour down south, the play will be ready for it's world tour.

Tickets are $74.90 but to take advantage of this special offer simply call 0448 356 259 and mention that you heard about the offer through Newsport Daily and you'll get two tickets for the price of one. 

For those of you who don't know who Peggy Guggenheim was, well you're in for a treat!  Here's a mini biography to get your taste buds going!

Firstly it's important to understand that The Peggy Guggenheim Collection  is one of the most important museums in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the 20th century.

And the lady herself was born, Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim, was born on August 26, 1898, to a wealthy New York City family.  She was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and the niece of Solomon R.Guggenheim, who established the Guggenheim Foundation.

In 1938, she opened her first gallery for modern art in London featuring Jean Cocteau and began to collect works of art.  After the outbreak of World War II, she purchased as much abstract and Surrealist art as possible. She called her London Gallery 'Guggenheim Jeune', the name being quite ingeniously chosen to associate the venue with the famous French Bernheim Jeune.  Whilst her successful little gallery was open, Marcel Duchamp, whom she had known since the early 1920s taught her about contemporary art and styles and he conceived several of the exhibitions held at Guggenheim Jeune.

The gallery held exhibitions on Wassily Kandinsky (his first one-man-show in England), Yves Tanguy and Wolfgang Paalen.  She also held group exhibitions of sculpture and collage, which included now classic moderns Antoine Pevsner, Henry Moore, Henri Laurens, Alexander Calder, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Constantin Brancusi, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, George Braque and Kurt Schwitters.

After the second world war interupted her expansion plans, she decided to buy paintings by all the painters who were on a list that Herbert Read, the English anarchist poet, and critic of literature and art, had prepared for her. 

Having plenty of time and considerable funds she went on a buying regime to buy one picture a day. When she had finished this considerable feat, she had acquired ten Picassos, forty Ernsts, eight Mirós, four Magrittes, three Man Rays, three Dalís, one Klee, one Wolfgang Paalen and one Chagall and in April 1940 she rented a large space in the Place Vendôme to house her formidable collection.

A few days before the Germans reached Paris, she abandoned her plans and fled to the south of France, from where, after months of safeguarding her collection and artist friends, she left Europe for New York in the summer of 1941. There, the following year, she opened a new gallery called The Art of This Century Gallery. Her four galleries were dedicated to Cubism, Surrealism and Kinetic art, with the fourth, being a commercial gallery.

She is credited with having advanced the careers of Jackson Pollock, William Congdon, Wolfgang Paalen, Ada Verdun Howell and German painter Max Ernst, whom she married in December 1941.  

In 1947 she returned to live in Venice, Italy. In 1948, she was invited to exhibit her collection and it became one of the few European collections of modern art to promote a significant amount of works by Americans.

By the early 1960s she was loaning out her collection to museums throughout Europe and America, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.  In fact on her death on 23rd Dec 1979 she left her collection to Guggenheim Foundation.