In the winter of 1969, Peggy Guggenheim, 70, took leave of her beloved Italian villa to come to New York City to see her personal art collection displayed, for the first time, on the spiraling ramps of the Guggenheim Museum. During this visit, she sat down for a long-format Q&A with WNYC's Ruth Bowman for the 1960s-era arts program, "Views on Art."

The literature on Abstract Expressionism and its New York environs is vast and deep — and incredibly heavy. (We have the multiple hernias to prove it.) If you’re interested in learning a little more about the period, the movement, its artists and their legacies, check out WNYC's list of some of the most informative reads.

What was happening and when — here's WNYC's timeline of some of the most significant events in the 1940s and '50s.

For the Abstract Expressionists – many of whom lived downtown and worked downtown – there was one place (and one place only) to go talk shop and raise hell. That place was the Cedar Tavern, a nondescript bar on University Place and 8th Street that became so legendary, it has since appeared in the obituaries of just about every artist who hung out there. This was where Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and a host of other figures came together over glasses of 15-cent beer. Get this audio download here.

There are galleries – and there are galleries. Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century wasn’t your average display space. It had curving gumwood walls, turquoise floors, amoeboid furniture and bizarre mechanical contraptions. It was the product of one of New York’s more notorious socialites (Peggy was renowned for her free-love ways) and a rotating cast of architects, surrealists, poets, artists, oddball curators and thinkers. Get this audio download here.

Perfect City is a two-part documentary which focuses on the physical spaces in New York that helped fuel the Abstract Expressionist movement — The Cedar Tavern and Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery — in advance of the exhibit "Abstract Expressionist New York" at the Museum of Modern Art. It is narrated by Carolina A. Miranda, who blogs on the arts as Gallerina for WNYC, and produced by Ave Carrillo.