The Noble Barnes

This week-end, I finally made it to The Barnes Foundation. My parents were here on a visit over Labor Day, so my mother & I spend an afternoon at the museum & gardens, a lovely day devoted to art and beauty.

I mentioned before that I wanted to see the Barnes collection in its original setting before its planned move to Center City. See Move on Down the Road. I'm a fan of Impressionist Art and I've been to Musee D'Orsay (and the Jeu de Pomme before that) several times, but this was definitely a different experience. Once I adjusted to the unusual groupings, I enjoyed the presentation.



I have followed the Barnes controversies over the years, the various battles which let to the decision of the Orphans Court to permit the gallery to move to Center City, near the Museum of Art. Of course, this saga appears to be one that never dies. In the latest iteration, there is yet another lawsuit over the move to Center City, as reported by the Inquirer, Neighbors sue to keep Barnes from moving:

They refuse to give up.

Almost three years after a judge issued an order permitting the Barnes Foundation to move its billion-dollar art collection to Philadelphia, a group of Barnes neighbors in Merion filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking to halt the move.

The action in Montgomery County Court asks Judge Stanley Ott to dissolve the Barnes board of directors and appoint a receiver to run the foundation under his supervision.

The latest lawsuit made the news nationally, see The Plot Thickens and Raising (Hell Over) the Barnes, as well as internationally, Opponents urge U.S. judge to reconsider Barnes Foundation's move.

I remain conflicted about the contemplated move of the collection. As much as I think the setting is divine, I also believe that the current location deprives the public of an opportunity to experience this superb collection of art. More could have (should have?) been done to preserve the Latches Lane setting by all of the parties involved. See, e.g., Destroying the Museum to Save It.

The Friends of the Barnes correctly point out that the collection was not intended as a museum, but rather a place devoted to art education. Yet, like those Christians who selectively interpret the Bible, one can find whatever one chooses in the original intent of Dr. Barnes. He also would not have been enamored of those neighbors fighting to "Keep the Barnes in Merion" who make up the class of person that he wanted to keep out -- not in. See my previous post on the Barnes, Move on Down the Road. As noted in Lifestyle, Barnes Foundation Update:

Dr. Barnes was particularly interested in providing access to the arts to common or “plain people” or those “who gain their livelihood by daily toil in shops, factories and schools, stores and similar places.”

Those neighbors who refer to the collection as "theirs" hardly fit that description.

In the end, however, it's all about the art -- and that it not to be missed. The weather was wonderful, so we also got a chance to spend some time in the gardens.

Another blogger recounts his first Barnes experience, Barnes Museum, Philadelphia Art, Renoir, Lower Merion, Barnes Foundation.

A short summary (with pictures) of Dr. Barnes & the Gallery can be found here. See also, NPR : Barnes Foundation Readies to Move Famous Paintings

For the conspiracy theorists of the world, there's even one related to the Barnes move -- that the real intent behind the move is to get the artwork into the hands of Philadelphia Museum of Art (which is the last place Barnes would have wanted his collection to end up), Barnes Friends: Foundation Move Is Part Of Conspiracy. See also, BarnesWatch! In fact, the allegations were so incendiary that the attorney who represents the Friends of the Barnes was forced to resign by Montgomery County Commissioners, whom he also represented. The litigation just filed reminds me of the Case of the Purloined Pants. The case has already been argued (and decided). The most recent claims seem like dragging the case on just because they could. At what point is continuation of litigation a form of vindictiveness and harassment rather than the assertion of a legitimate claim? I suppose we could ask Judge Pearson?

It's too bad that there's not a way to maintain the Latches Lane Gallery, as well as the new museum on the Parkway. There is certainly enough artwork to fill the two locations, as well as keeping the art school and gardens in Merion.


I like the suggestion made by Ed Sozanki of the Inquirer, A modest proposal for new Barnes, which posited that the Center City location not be a replica of the Merion site. After all, notwithstanding the fact that Barnes decreed that the art not be moved from its place at his death, he often moved the pieces into new groupings. Instead, a new configuration would emerge:

He built his collection on three foundation stones - Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse, masters of, respectively, impressionism, post-impressionism and modernism. Barnes II could be similarly organized around concentrations of work by each.

On entering, visitors would be greeted by a condensed version of the international traveling exhibition of 1993-95 - the paintings that attracted nearly four million people around the world, from Paris to Tokyo. This highlights gallery would offer a quick, easily digested introduction to this astonishing collection.

That might be enough for some museum-goers, especially if their buses are double-parked. Otherwise, visitors would proceed into discrete suites of galleries devoted individually to Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse. Each would constitute a small museum by itself that would include, peripherally, paintings by other artists associated with the same movement.

Renoir would be enhanced by Manet, Monet and Sisley; Cezanne by van Gogh, Rousseau and Seurat; and Matisse by Picasso, Soutine and Braque.

In other sections of the building, the architect could provide galleries for the foundation's principal specialty collections. African sculpture, for instance, could reside adjacent to modernism, on which it was a major influence.

New Mexican retablos, pueblo pottery, and Navajo jewelry could constitute a synergistic grouping within a large area devoted to American art. Besides paintings, this area also could house Pennsylvania German chests and the Colonial redware pottery now housed at the Barnes' Ker-Feal property in Chester County.

Finally, the architect could include a replica section that would duplicate not the entire Merion gallery but enough of it to give visitors the flavor of Barnes I.

If a replica of the Merion collection resides downtown, why not keep some of the artwork in Merion (or rotate the signature pieces). The only thing I'd add to Sozanki's idea is: Instead of one or the other, why not both?

Tags: Philadelphia, Philly, Art, Barnes Foundation