Amazon.com description: Product Description: Exploring the origins and early days of the Guggenheim Museum--when it was first known as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting--this volume reveals for the first time the Guggenheim's complex architectural history, drawing on extensive correspondence between Founding Director Hilla Rebay and artist Rudolf Bauer (whose work the Guggenheim collected exhaustively) to reveal the leading role Bauer played in envisioning the collection and the museum. It also explores Rebay's unusual curatorial conceptions and framing practices at the museum's early locations. Karol Vail provides biographies of many lesser-known artists in the museum's collection, while others discuss the museum's early history and ambitions. Architectural drawings, installation views, photographs and color plates of selected artworks help track the rise of this great museum.