It is one of three museums owned by the Solomon Robert Guggenheim Foundation, an American art collector and philanthropist. The Foundation was established in 1937 by Salomon Guggenheim and Hilla von Rebay, a German abstract painter, collector, and promoter of modernist art in the United States.
The Foundation is a non-profit organization, whose purpose is to collect, preserve, and study contemporary art. In addition to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Foundation includes the Guggenheim Museum New York and the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin.
