Solomon Robert Guggenheim, founder of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, was born on 2 February 1861, in Philadelphia. He was the fourth of eleven children. His father, Meyer (1828-1905), and his mother, Barbara, had emigrated from Switzerland to the United States 1948. Meyer Guggenheim increased his wealth as a textile manufacturer and importer of Swiss lace and embroidery to America. Later, he became an even more successful industrialist, making a fortune in the mining and smelting business. Several of Guggenheim ' s sons became noted for their philanthropy, making generous donations to charitable and educational organizations. Solomon began his education in Philadelphia and, the age of 14, was sent to Switzerland to attend the Concordia Institute in Zurich. At age 20, he joined his three elder brothers, Isaac, Daniel and Murray, as a partner in his father ' s Swiss embroidery, manufacturing and importing company, M. Guggenheim ' s Sons. Sol, as he was called by friends and family, trained in the factory and later set up a new manufacturing facility in Saxony. In the 1880 ' s, Meyer Guggenheim advised his sons to sell the textile factory and return to America where he had invested in a mining operation in Colorado. In 1889 Sol went to Leadville, Colorado to learn the business of mining. Later he was sent to Monterrey, Mexico, to build the country 's first lead silver smelter. In 1891, he supervised the building of a copper smelter in Aguascalientes. He continued to work in Mexico until 1895 when he returned to New York which was now the family' s headquarters. In 1901 the Guggenheims won control of the reorganized American Smelting and Refining Company, thus becoming one of the foremost refiners of metals in the world. Sol joined the board of directors and was active in many of the family ' s mining properties. He was president of Braden Copper Company in Chile, and director of the Chile Copper Company, the Utah Copper Company and the Guggenheim Exploration Company. I-le also founded the Yukon Gold Company in Alaska. Solomon R. Guggenheim retired from full time business activity in 1919. He spent the rest of his life pursuing his interest in fine art. It was his wife, the former Irene Rothschild, who ignited his passion for collecting. His first collections consisted of works from the Barbizon School, American and Italian landscapes, and Italian, German and Dutch old masters. In 1926, he met the artist Baroness Hilly Rebay von Erhenweisen who turned his taste toward nonobjective art. It was with her guidance that Guggenheim formed his famous collection of modern art, buying works by such artists as Vasily Kandinsky, Fernand Leger, Paul Klee and Marc Chagall. In 1937, he established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation "for the promotion of art and education in art and the enlightenment of the public especially in the field of art. " The Foundation opened the Museum of Nonobjective Paintings for which the Baroness Erhenweisen served as curator. The museum faltered clue the eccentric tastes of the Baroness; the works she acquired for the museum could not compare to Guggenheim ' s personal collection. In 1943, Guggenheim decided to build a museum to house his own collection of avant-garde art. He commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design and build the permanent museum. 16 years elapsed between the submission of the original plans and the completion of the shell-like, spiral building recognized worldwide. Unfortunately, Guggenheim died ten years prior to the museum ' s official opening in 1959. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a New York architectural landmark and contains one of the world ' s best collections of modern and contemporary art.