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The Making of "The Guggenheim Fellowship at 100"

An interview with Hanna Pennington, the Guggenheim Foundation's Archivist

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In honor of the opening of "The Guggenheim Fellowship at 100," our exhibit at The New York Historical, we spoke with Hanna Pennington, the Archivist & Associate Director at the Guggenheim Foundation, who shared more about her work, how the exhibit came to be, and particular highlights in the show. You can see it in person from now through November 30th. Learn more here.

Hi, Hanna! Thanks for speaking with us. Could you please introduce yourself and tell us about your role at the Foundation? 

My name is Hanna Pennington. I’m the Archivist & Associate Director at the Guggenheim Foundation. I work to preserve and organize the Foundation’s archives and library and assist researchers with inquiries about Guggenheim Fellows, Foundation records, and Foundation history. 

I know you’ve been working on "The Guggenheim Fellowship at 100,” our exhibit at The New York Historical, for a long time now. Can you share how it came about?  

“The Guggenheim Fellowship at 100” is the result of a collaboration with The New York Historical, and was co-curated with Saray Vazquez, Assistant Manager of Museum Administration at The New York Historical.  

The exhibit came about to celebrate the 2025 centennial of the Guggenheim Foundation, to explore the impact of the Guggenheim Fellowship on American culture and history, and to highlight the achievements of notable Fellows across a broad range of fields.   

The exhibit took shape from extensive research in the Foundation’s archives and library, looking at the founding of the Fellowship program and the works of many Guggenheim Fellows in the sciences, arts, humanities, and social sciences over the last century. 

What made The New York Historical the right home for this exhibit?  

As New York’s oldest museum, The New York Historical’s focus on exploring American history through art, artifacts, and documents was a great fit for this exhibit on the Guggenheim Fellowship. “The Guggenheim Fellowship at 100” will be on view there through November 30, 2025.  

Other current and upcoming exhibitions at The New York Historical will be interesting to view in conversation with our exhibit, such as “Blacklisted: An American Story” (on view until November 12, 2025) and “The Gay Harlem Renaissance” (on view from October 10, 2025 to March 8, 2026).  “The Guggenheim Fellowship at 100” addresses the McCarthy era and blacklisting and features Guggenheim Fellows who contributed to the Harlem Renaissance. 

GF PAULING 1958 001
Linus Pauling, "No More War!," 1958

There is SO much in the Foundation's 100-year-old archive. How did you decide what to include? What became the organizing principle?  

With over 19,000 Guggenheim Fellows awarded over the past 100 years, there are thousands of fascinating stories to tell about Fellows and their remarkable lives and contributions to science, scholarship, and the arts. It was an interesting challenge to narrow this down to present a small cross-section of a much larger whole.  

We’ve worked to put together a selection of engaging materials that represent the breadth of the Fellowship program across diverse fields, and to show connections between the works of Fellows in different disciplines and time periods. The materials in the exhibit illustrate both the impact of the Fellowship on the lives and careers of individual Fellows, and the way these Fellows’ creations and discoveries contribute to knowledge and culture on a broader collective scale. 

I imagine it’s probably impossible to choose, but is there any one item in the exhibit that you’re especially excited to share? What makes it special?  

I’m excited to share examples of correspondence between Guggenheim Fellows and representatives of the Foundation. These letters allow us to hear from Fellows in their own voices and can give a sort of behind-the-scenes look at their lives and processes during the developing stages of their work. Over the years, many Fellows have kept in touch with the Foundation during and after their Fellowship terms, reporting on their travels, lives, and the progression of their work. 

During her 1936 and 1937 Fellowships in General Nonfiction, Zora Neale Hurston traveled, researched, and wrote in Jamaica and Haiti. Along the way, she maintained correspondence with Henry Allen Moe, the Foundation’s first president, and shared updates on her work and travels. In Haiti in 1937, Hurston wrote her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. When the book was published, she dedicated it to Henry Allen Moe.  

Martha Graham was awarded the first Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography in 1932. In a letter to Henry Allen Moe, Graham wrote that she hoped she would be only the first of many choreographers to receive support from the Guggenheim Foundation. As of 2025, there have been 240 Guggenheim Fellows in Choreography.  

Did any part of the process—from choosing the items to the installation—surprise you? 

In developing the exhibit and researching Fellows across a broad span of fields, I was struck by the scale of over 19,000 Fellowships, of 100 years. Though the exhibit can only include a sliver of this, it is intended to show a selection from a larger whole and to be a starting place for visitors to continue to explore the world-changing work of Guggenheim Fellows.  

This project also emphasized the importance of the Foundation’s mission to support individuals “under the freest possible conditions” —not just to support Fellows with the concrete goals of a particular project, but to support their lives to enable them to pursue their work, and to give them the space to allow for the unexpected and follow new discoveries. 

What do you hope visitors will take away from their visit? 

In his 1925 first Letter of Gift establishing the Foundation, Simon Guggenheim wrote, “We strongly hope that this Foundation will advance human achievement by aiding students to push forward the boundaries of understanding, and will enrich human life by aiding them in the cultivation of beauty and taste. If, at the close of our lives, looking both backward and forward, we can envision an endless succession of scholars, scientists, and artists aided by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, devoting themselves to these purposes, we shall feel that, with the help of our associates, we shall have accomplished the aim which we had set before us, in memory of our son.”  

My hope is that this exhibit will help visitors to envision this endless succession of Guggenheim Fellows who have enriched and continue to enrich human life, looking both backward at the past 100 years and forward to the next 100. 

Thank you, Hanna!  

Date -August 29, 2025

AuthorKate Welsh

Image Credit Zora Neale Hurston, "Their Eyes Were Watching God," 1937.

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Robert Frank Parade

The Guggenheim Fellowship at 100: A New Special Exhibit Celebrating a Century of Cultural Impact

On view at The New York Historical August 29 – November 30, 2025