LAS VEGAS, NV.- The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum opens The Pursuit of Pleasure, an exhibition of approximately 35 works exploring the images of leisure in Western art from the 16th century to the early 20th century. The exhibition is organized into four thematic sections: "Music and Dance," "Celebration and Café Society," "Gaming and Sport," and "Flirtation and Romance," as represented by artists as diverse as Max Beckmann, Edgar Degas, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Pablo Picasso, Peter Paul Rubens, Jan Steen, Titian, and Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez.

The Pursuit of Pleasure, scheduled to run through February 2005, is the fifth exhibition to be presented in Las Vegas at the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum and the second to recognize the unique alliance between the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria. It was co-organized by Susan Davidson, Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Arkady Ippolitov, Curator of Italian Prints, State Hermitage Museum; and Karl Schütz, Director, Gemäldegalerie, Kunsthistorisches Museum.