Albert C. Barnes Albert C. Barnes began collecting art as early as 1902, but became a serious collector in 1912. He was assisted at first by painter
William Glackens, an old schoolmate from
Central High School in Philadelphia. On an art buying trip to
Paris, France, Barnes visited the home of
Gertrude and Leo Stein where he purchased his first two paintings by
Henri Matisse. In the 1920s, Barnes became acquainted with the work of other modern artists such as
Pablo Picasso,
Amedeo Modigliani and
Giorgio de Chirico through his Paris art dealer
Paul Guillaume. On December 4, 1922, Barnes received a charter from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania establishing the Barnes Foundation as an educational institution dedicated to promoting the appreciation of
fine art and
arboriculture. He purchased property in
Merion at 50 Lapsley Lane from the
American Civil War veteran and horticulturist Captain
Joseph Lapsley Wilson, who had established an arboretum there in around 1880. He commissioned architect
Paul Philippe Cret to design a complex of buildings, including a gallery, an administration building, and a service building. The Barnes Foundation officially opened on March 19, 1925.
Art education programs In 1908, Barnes organized his business, the A.C. Barnes Company, as a cooperative, devoting two hours of the work day to seminars for his workers. They read philosophers
William James,
Georges Santayana, and
John Dewey. Barnes also brought some of his art collection into the laboratory for the workers to consider and discuss. This kind of direct experience with art was inspired by the education philosophy of John Dewey and planted the seed that eventually grew into the establishment of the Barnes Foundation. The two met at a
Columbia University seminar in 1917 becoming close friends and collaborators spanning more than three decades. The Foundation classes included experiencing original art works, participating in class discussion, reading about philosophy and the traditions of art, as well as looking objectively at the artists' use of light, line, color, and space. Barnes believed that students would not only learn about art from these experiences but that they would also develop their own critical thinking skills enabling them to become more productive members of a democratic society. The early education programs at the Barnes Foundation were taught in partnership with the
University of Pennsylvania and
Columbia University. The courses at Penn were first taught by Laurence Buermeyer (1889–1970), who held a philosophy PhD from Princeton, and later by Thomas Munro (1897–1974), a philosophy professor and one of Dewey's students. Originally hired to teach French to the Foundation staff in 1925, de Mazia became a close associate of Barnes, teaching and co-authoring four Foundation publications. In 2015 however, the de Mazia Foundation ceased its operations and was absorbed by the Barnes Foundation. Barnes created detailed terms of operation in an indenture of trust to be honored in perpetuity after his death. These included limiting public admission to two days a week, so the school could use the art collection primarily for student study, and prohibiting the loan of works in the collection, colored reproductions of its works, touring the collection, and presenting touring exhibitions of other art. Matisse is said to have hailed the school as the only sane place in America to view art.
Post-Barnes era After a decade of legal challenges, the public was allowed regular access to the collection in 1961. Public access was expanded to two and a half days a week, with a limit of 500 visitors per week; reservations were required by telephone at least two weeks in advance. Harold J. Weigand, an editor of
The Philadelphia Inquirer, with the consent of, but not directly on behalf of, the
Pennsylvania Attorney General, had filed an earlier suit for access but had been unsuccessful.
Financial crisis In 1992, Richard H. Glanton, president of the foundation, said the museum needed extensive repairs to upgrade its mechanical systems, provide for maintenance and preservation of artworks, and improve security. The old Philadelphia firm J.S. Cornell & Son was the contractor of choice. In order to raise the money, Glanton decided to break some terms of the indenture. From 1993 to 1995, 83 of the collection's Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings were sent on a world tour, attracting large crowds in numerous cities, including
Washington, D.C.;
Fort Worth,
Texas;
Paris;
Tokyo;
Toronto; and
Philadelphia at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1998,
Kimberly Camp was hired as the foundation's CEO and first museum professional to run the Barnes. During her seven-year tenure, she turned the struggling foundation around and provided necessary support to the petition to move the Barnes to Philadelphia.
Proposed move On September 24, 2002, the foundation announced that it would petition the
Montgomery County Orphans' Court (which oversees its operations) to allow the art collection to be moved to Philadelphia (which offered a site on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway) and to triple the number of trustees to 15. The foundation's indenture of trust stipulates that the paintings in the collection be kept "in exactly the places they are". The foundation argued that it needed to expand the board of trustees from five (four of which were held by persons appointed by Lincoln University) to 15 to increase fundraising. For the same reason, it needed to move the gallery from Merion to a site in
Center City, Philadelphia, which would provide greater public access. In its brief to the court, the foundation said that donors were reluctant to commit continuing financial resources to the Barnes unless the gallery were to become more accessible to the public. On December 15, 2004, after a two-year legal battle that included an examination of the foundation's financial situation, Judge Stanley Ott ruled that the foundation could move. On June 13, 2005, the Foundation's president, Kimberly Camp, announced her resignation, to take effect no later than January 1, 2006. Camp had been appointed in 1998 with the goal of stabilizing and restoring the foundation to its original mission. During her tenure, she began the Collection Assessment Project, the first full-scale effort to catalog and stabilize the artworks; brought in exemplary professional staff; created the fundraising program; restored Ker-feal and the Barnes Arboretum; and worked with the board to approve policies and procedures to make the foundation viable. In 2002, Dr. Bernard C. Watson began the proposal to move the Barnes. The foundation pledged to reproduce Barnes's artistic arrangement of the artworks and other furniture within the new gallery to maintain the experience as he intended.
Planning the move In August 2006, the Barnes Foundation announced that it was beginning a planning analysis for the new gallery. The board selected
Derek Gillman (formerly of the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) as the new director and president. In June 2011, the foundation announced that it had surpassed its $200 million fund-raising goal, of which $150 million would go toward construction of the Philadelphia building and associated costs, and $50 million to the foundation's endowment. The foundation proceeded with plans to build a new facility in the 2000 block of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, near the Rodin Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Tod Williams & Billie Tsien Architects of New York were lead architects of the building project. The project team included the Philadelphia-based firm,
Ballinger, as associate architect;
OLIN as landscape architect; and Fisher Marantz Stone as lighting designers. Aegis Property Group served as external project managers, with L. F. Driscoll as construction managers.
Project executive Bill McDowell supervised and coordinated the project for the foundation. Construction for the new building began in fall, 2009 and the building opened in May, 2012. The new galleries were designed to replicate the scale, proportion and configuration of the original galleries in Merion. Reviews have praised the new facility, claiming the additional natural light has improved the viewing experience. The new site contains more space for the foundation's art education program and conservation department, a retail shop, and cafe. The building was designated
LEED Platinum and received the 2013 AIA Institute Honor Award for Architecture, the 2013 Building Stone Institute Tucker Award, and the 2012 Apollo Award for Museum Opening of the Year.
Legal challenges to the move After Judge Ott's decision in 2004, The Friends of the Barnes Foundation and Montgomery County filed briefs in Montgomery County Orphan's Court to reopen the hearings that allowed the move. They hoped to persuade Ott to reopen the case because of the changed circumstances in the county. On May 15, 2008, Ott published an opinion dismissing the request of both the Friends of the Barnes Foundation and the Montgomery County Commissioners to reopen the case due to lack of
standing. Congressman
Jim Gerlach strongly supported keeping the Barnes in Merion. On May 20, 2009, Friends of the Barnes Foundation appeared before the Commissioners of the
Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) in
Camden,
New Jersey, to request that they reconsider their 2003 authorization of a grant of $500,000 toward the plan to move the foundation. They contended there was insufficient evidence of substantial economic benefit to Philadelphia, and that DRPA had not undertaken necessary economic evaluation assessing the impact at both locations. They introduced a study by economist Matityahu Marcus that challenged the claimed benefits. The DRPA said that it would consider the Friends' request but did not change its decision. The history is chronicled in the HBO documentary The Collector. In late February 2011, The Friends of the Barnes Foundation filed a petition to reopen the case. A new hearing, set for March 18, was postponed until August 3, 2011. The court ordered the foundation and the Attorney General's office, who argued in favor of the move, to explain why the case should not be reopened. The opposition group, Friends of the Barnes Foundation, says
The Art of the Steal revealed that Ott did not have all the evidence in 2006, when he approved the art collection's move. On October 6, 2011, Judge Ott ruled that the Friends of the Barnes Foundation had no legal standing and that there was no new information in the movie.
After the move After the move, the Barnes Foundation retained its ownership of the building in Merion, using it as a storage space. In 2018, Saint Joseph's University took a 30-year lease on the building and its adjoining arboretum at a cost of $100 a year, with Saint Joseph's University undertaking to pay the maintenance and security costs for the property. The lease allows the university to hang its own artworks in the gallery space. The museum facility, which was modernized and rebranded as the Frances M. Maguire Art Museum at St. Joseph's University opened in 2023. Its collection includes one of the largest collections of Latin American Colonial art in the region, as well as refurbished plaster casts from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. ==Collection==