Albert C. Barnes
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Edited by: Monty Whitfield
Edited by: Monty Whitfield
Albert C. Barnes | |
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"Albert Coombs Barnes (January 2, 1872 – July 24, 1951) was an American chemist and art collector. With the fortune made from the development of the antiseptic drug Argyrol, he founded the Barnes Foundation, an educational institution based on his private collection of art. It is strongly represented by paintings by Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modernist masters, as well as furniture and crafted objects. It is located near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Barnes was known as an eccentric figure who had a passion for educating the underprivileged. He created a special relationship with Lincoln University, a historically black college in the area, and gave the university a strong role in administration of his foundation. It selected candidates for four of the five original trustee seats.
Barnes was born in Philadelphia to working-class parents; his father was a butcher. He felt snubbed by Philadelphia society as a result of his circumstances and, in later life, took steps to avenge the perceived slight.
He attended the public academic Central High School in Philadelphia. Then he financed his own education in chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and in Germany.
Career
In 1899 with a German student named Hermann Hille, Barnes developed a mild silver nitrate antiseptic solution, marketed as Argyrol. Argyrol was an immediate financial success.[1] Barnes bought out his partner and became a millionaire by the age of 35, soon after the turn of the century. With good timing, he sold his company before the stock market crash of 1929 and the advent of other antibiotics.[2]
Art collecting
From about 1910, when he was in his late 30s, Barnes began to dedicate himself to the study and pursuit of art. He commissioned one of his former high school classmates, the painter William Glackens, to buy several 'modern' French paintings for him. Glackens returned from Paris with the 20 paintings that formed the core of Barnes' collection.[3]
In 1912, during a stay in Paris, Barnes was invited to the home of Gertrude and Leo Stein, where he met artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. In the 1920s, the art dealer Paul Guillaume introduced him to the work of Amedeo Modigliani, Giorgio de Chirico, and Chaim Soutine among others. With money, an excellent eye, and the poor economic conditions during the Depression, Barnes was able to acquire much important art at bargain prices. His first Picasso, for instance, was bought for under $100.[citation needed]
Barnes was known for his antagonism to the discipline of art history, which he said "stifles both self-expression and appreciation of art." He was an outspoken and controversial critic of public education and the museum. He set up his foundation to allow visitors to have a direct, even "hands-on", approach to the collection. He created it, he said, not for the benefit of art historians, but for that of the students.[4]
In 1923 a public showing of Barnes' collection proved that it was too avant-garde for most people's taste at the time. The critics ridiculed the show, prompting Barnes' long-lasting and well-publicized antagonism toward those he considered part of the art establishment. Barnes had his collection hung according to his own ideas about showing relationships between paintings and objects; for instance, paintings were placed near furniture and finely crafted medieval, Renaissance and Early American hinges and metalwork. The pieces were identified in a minimal manner, without traditional curatorial comment, so that viewers could approach them without mediation.[citation needed]
Legacy
Barnes and his wife Laura purchased an 18th century estate in West Pikeland Township, Pennsylvania, and named it "Ker-Feal" (Breton for “House of Fidèle”) after their favorite dog. Barnes had brought the dog home from Brittany during an art-buying trip to France.[10] Barnes died on July 24, 1951, in an automobile crash.[11] Driving from Ker-Feal to Merion, he failed to stop at a stop sign and was hit broadside by a truck near Phoenixville. He was killed instantly.[12][13]
Barnes wrote several books that explained his theory of art aesthetics: The Art in Painting, The French Primitives and Their Forms, The Art of Renoir, The Art of Henri-Matisse, The Art of Cézanne. The last four books were co-authored with Violette de Mazia. Barnes co-authored Art and Education with Dewey, Buermeyer, Mullen, and deMazia.
Having watched the Philadelphia Museum of Art take control of the collection of his late lawyer, John Johnson, Barnes tried to prevent the same from happening to his collection. The Foundation's Indenture of Trust and other documents provide that the Barnes Foundation was to remain an educational institution, open to the public only two to three days a week. His art collection, furthermore, could never be loaned or sold; it was to stay on the walls of the foundation in exactly the places they were at the time of his death.[11] After court cases, as of 2010, the Barnes collection was being relocated from Lower Merion to a new public museum in Philadelphia, near the Philadelphia Museum of Art, an establishment Barnes detested.[14]
The 2009 documentary film The Art of the Steal tells the story of Barnes' collection and the legal challenges to its staying in Lower Merion.
Relationship with Bertrand Russell
Barnes was responsible for financially rescuing the distinguished philosopher Bertrand Russell in the 1940s. Russell was living in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the summer of 1940, short of money and unable to earn an income from journalism or teaching. Barnes, who had himself been rebuffed by the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, had been impressed by Russell's battles with the Establishment, and invited Russell to teach philosophy at his Foundation. Russell invited Barnes to his cabin in Lake Tahoe, and managed to secure a contract to teach for five years on a salary of $6,000, subsequently raised to $8,000 in order that Russell could give up his other teaching duties[15]. Russell was contracted to give one lecture a week on the history of Western philosophy, which later became the basis of his best-selling book History of Western Philosophy."
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