Albert C. Barnes
Encyclopedia
Albert Coombs Barnes was an American
chemist
and art collector. With the fortune made from the development of the antiseptic, anti-blindness 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.
and became a letter carrier. His mother was a devout Methodist who took Barnes to
African-American camp meetings and revivals.
He earned a spot at the public academic Central High School in Philadelphia. Barnes helped put himself through the University of Pennsylvania
by tutoring, boxing, and playing semi-professional baseball. At age 20, he was a medical doctor.
antiseptic
solution, marketed as Argyrol
. Used in the treatment of gonorrhea
and as a preventative of gonorrheal blindness in newborn infants, Argyrol was an immediate financial success.
Barnes proved adept at running the business: he convinced Hille not to patent Argyrol to prevent it from being stolen by competitors, he marketed directly to physicians, and took his product abroad. Within five years of starting the business in 1902, the firm cleared $250,000 in profits (roughly $5.8 million today).
Barnes bought out Hille and became a millionaire in the 1900s by the age of 35. In July 1929, Barnes sold his business for a reported sum of $6 million. The move was well timed, he sold before the 1929 stock market crash and the antibiotic age that started during World War II
.
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. In 1911, Barnes gave Glackens $20,000 to buy paintings for him in Paris. Glackens returned from Paris
with the 20 paintings that formed the core of Barnes' collection.
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 Great Depression
, Barnes was able to acquire much important art at bargain prices. "Particularly during the Depression," Barnes said, "my specialty was robbing the suckers who had invested all their money in flimsy securities and then had to sell their priceless paintings to keep a roof over their heads."
For example, in 1913, Barnes acquired Picasso's Peasants and Oxen for $300—about $6500 in 2010—and he picked up dozens more canvasses for a dollar apiece. He paid a mere $4000 for The Joy of Life. According to biographer, John Anderson, the most Barnes ever paid for a painting was $100,000.
Barnes's collection grew to house 69 Cézannes—more than in all the museums in Paris—as well as 60 Matisses, 44 Picassos, and an astonishing 181 Renoirs. The 2,500 items in the collection include major works by (among others) Rousseau, Modiggliani, Soutine, Seurat, Degas, and van Gogh. The entire collection is estimated today to be worth between $20 and $30 billion. Although John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were vastly wealthier than Albert Barnes, the Barnes Foundation has assets 10 to 20 times greater than either the Carnegie Corporation or the Rockefeller Corporation.
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.
In 1925, the Barnes Foundation opened its doors as an educational institution, not a museum. It was housed in an estate in Lower Merion. The Barnes Collection was arranged in a new building designed by Paul-Philippe Cret, a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts
.
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. For example, he informed Edith Powell
of the Philadelphia Public Ledger that she would never be a real art critic until she had relations with the ice man.
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.
Barnes' interests included what came to be called the Harlem Renaissance
, and he followed its artists and writers. In March 1925 Barnes wrote an essay "Negro Art and America", published in the Survey Graphic of Harlem, which was edited by Alain Locke. He explained his admiration of what could be called 'black soul'. In the late 1940s Barnes met Horace Mann Bond
, the first black president of Lincoln University
, a historically black college in central Chester County, Pennsylvania
. They established a friendship that led to Barnes' inviting Lincoln students to the collection. He also ensured by his will that officials of the university had a prominent role after his death in running his collection.
Barnes limited access to the collection, and required people to make appointments by letter. Applicants sometimes received rejection letters "signed" by Barnes's dog, Fidèle-de-Port-Manech. In a famous case, Barnes refused admission to writer James A. Michener
, who gained access to the collection only by posing as an illiterate steelworker. In another, Barnes turned down T.S. Eliot's request with a one-word answer: "Nuts."
It was not until 1961 that the collection was open to the public regularly two days a week. That schedule expanded slightly in 1967. Up through the early 1990s, long after Barnes's death, access to the collection was extremely limited, and the foundation restricted the reproduction in color of many works, so they could only be seen in person. The collection had difficulties raising enough money from attendees to provide for needed renovations to its building, as well as regular operating expenses. The Foundation decided to send 80 works to be exhibited on a three-year tour to raise money for needed renovations. The paintings and other works attracted huge crowds in numerous cities.
Because of these restrictions, many people never saw works that were part of the "conversation" of artists and history. For example, the critic Hilton Kramer
wrote of Matisse's Le bonheur de vivre
: "owing to its long sequestration in the collection of the Barnes Foundation, which never permitted its reproduction in color, it is the least familiar of modern masterpieces. Yet this painting was Matisse's own response to the hostility his work had met with in the Salon d'Automne
of 1905."
The Foundation became embroiled in controversy due to a financial crisis in the 1990s, partially related to longstanding restrictions on public access resulting from its location in a residential neighborhood. After a court challenge and resolution of legal issues, the gallery holdings are to be relocated from Lower Merion to a new building sited in Philadelphia on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
, for enhanced public access; the opening is scheduled for 2012.
, 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. Barnes died on 24 July 1951, in an automobile crash. 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.
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. 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.
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.
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. 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
.
The two men later fell out after Barnes was offended by the apparently snobbish behaviour of Russell's wife Patricia
, who insisted on calling herself 'Lady Russell'. Barnes wrote to Russell, saying 'when we engaged you to teach we did not obligate ourselves to endure forever the trouble-making propensities of your wife', and looked for excuses to dismiss Russell. In 1942, when Russell agreed to give weekly lectures at the Rand School of Social Science
, Barnes dismissed him for breach of contract, claiming that the offer of the extra $2,000 was conditional upon his exclusively teaching at the Foundation. Russell sued for loss of $24,000 (the amount owed for the remaining three years of the contract), and in August 1943 was awarded $20,000 – the amount owed less $4,000, which the court expected Russell to be able to earn from public lectures for the remaining three years.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
and art collector. With the fortune made from the development of the antiseptic, anti-blindness drug Argyrol
Argyrol
Argyrol is the trade name for an antiseptic consisting of a compound of protein and silver. It was developed and commercialized by American physician Dr. Albert Coombs Barnes to treat gonorrhea, and as a preventative of gonorrheal blindness in newborn infants....
, 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
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
.
Barnes was known as an eccentric figure who had a passion for educating the underprivileged. He created a special relationship with Lincoln University
Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)
Lincoln University is the United States' first degree-granting historically black university. It is located near the town of Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. The university also hosts a Center for Graduate Studies in the City of Philadelphia. Lincoln University provides...
, 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.
Early life
Barnes was born in Philadelphia to working-class parents. His father had been a butcher before the Civil War (American) where he lost his right arm in at the Battle of Cold HarborBattle of Cold Harbor
The Battle of Cold Harbor was fought from May 31 to June 12, 1864 . It was one of the final battles of Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign during the American Civil War, and is remembered as one of American history's bloodiest, most lopsided battles...
and became a letter carrier. His mother was a devout Methodist who took Barnes to
African-American camp meetings and revivals.
He earned a spot at the public academic Central High School in Philadelphia. Barnes helped put himself through the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
by tutoring, boxing, and playing semi-professional baseball. At age 20, he was a medical doctor.
Career
In 1899 with a German chemist named Hermann Hille, Barnes developed a mild silver nitrateSilver nitrate
Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula . This compound is a versatile precursor to many other silver compounds, such as those used in photography. It is far less sensitive to light than the halides...
antiseptic
Antiseptic
Antiseptics are antimicrobial substances that are applied to living tissue/skin to reduce the possibility of infection, sepsis, or putrefaction...
solution, marketed as Argyrol
Argyrol
Argyrol is the trade name for an antiseptic consisting of a compound of protein and silver. It was developed and commercialized by American physician Dr. Albert Coombs Barnes to treat gonorrhea, and as a preventative of gonorrheal blindness in newborn infants....
. Used in the treatment of gonorrhea
Gonorrhea
Gonorrhea is a common sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The usual symptoms in men are burning with urination and penile discharge. Women, on the other hand, are asymptomatic half the time or have vaginal discharge and pelvic pain...
and as a preventative of gonorrheal blindness in newborn infants, Argyrol was an immediate financial success.
Barnes proved adept at running the business: he convinced Hille not to patent Argyrol to prevent it from being stolen by competitors, he marketed directly to physicians, and took his product abroad. Within five years of starting the business in 1902, the firm cleared $250,000 in profits (roughly $5.8 million today).
Barnes bought out Hille and became a millionaire in the 1900s by the age of 35. In July 1929, Barnes sold his business for a reported sum of $6 million. The move was well timed, he sold before the 1929 stock market crash and the antibiotic age that started during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Art collecting and collection
William Glackens
William James Glackens was an American realist painter.Glackens studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later moved to New York City, where he co-founded what came to be called the Ashcan School art movement...
, to buy several 'modern' French paintings for him. In 1911, Barnes gave Glackens $20,000 to buy paintings for him in Paris. Glackens returned from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
with the 20 paintings that formed the core of Barnes' collection.
In 1912, during a stay in Paris, Barnes was invited to the home of Gertrude
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
and Leo Stein
Leo Stein
Leo Stein was an American art collector and critic. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, the older brother of Gertrude Stein. He became an influential promoter of 20th-century paintings. Beginning in 1892, he studied at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for two years. The...
, where he met artists such as Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
and Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
. In the 1920s, the art dealer Paul Guillaume
Paul Guillaume
Paul Guillaume was a French art dealer. Dealer of Chaim Soutine and Amedeo Modigliani, he was one of the first to organize African art exhibitions...
introduced him to the work of Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
, Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
, and Chaim Soutine
Chaim Soutine
Chaïm Soutine was a Jewish painter from Belarus. Soutine made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living in Paris....
among others. With money, an excellent eye, and the poor economic conditions during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Barnes was able to acquire much important art at bargain prices. "Particularly during the Depression," Barnes said, "my specialty was robbing the suckers who had invested all their money in flimsy securities and then had to sell their priceless paintings to keep a roof over their heads."
For example, in 1913, Barnes acquired Picasso's Peasants and Oxen for $300—about $6500 in 2010—and he picked up dozens more canvasses for a dollar apiece. He paid a mere $4000 for The Joy of Life. According to biographer, John Anderson, the most Barnes ever paid for a painting was $100,000.
Barnes's collection grew to house 69 Cézannes—more than in all the museums in Paris—as well as 60 Matisses, 44 Picassos, and an astonishing 181 Renoirs. The 2,500 items in the collection include major works by (among others) Rousseau, Modiggliani, Soutine, Seurat, Degas, and van Gogh. The entire collection is estimated today to be worth between $20 and $30 billion. Although John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were vastly wealthier than Albert Barnes, the Barnes Foundation has assets 10 to 20 times greater than either the Carnegie Corporation or the Rockefeller Corporation.
Barnes was known for his antagonism to the discipline of art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
, 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.
In 1925, the Barnes Foundation opened its doors as an educational institution, not a museum. It was housed in an estate in Lower Merion. The Barnes Collection was arranged in a new building designed by Paul-Philippe Cret, a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
.
Relations with art community and Pennsylvania high life
In 1923 a public showing of Barnes' collection proved that it was too avant-gardeAvant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
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. For example, he informed Edith Powell
Public Ledger (Philadelphia)
The Public Ledger was a daily newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania published from March 25, 1836 to January 1942. Its motto was "Virtue Liberty and Independence". For a time, it was Philadelphia's most popular newspaper, but circulation declined in the mid-1930s.-Early history:Founded by William...
of the Philadelphia Public Ledger that she would never be a real art critic until she had relations with the ice man.
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.
Barnes' interests included what came to be called the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
, and he followed its artists and writers. In March 1925 Barnes wrote an essay "Negro Art and America", published in the Survey Graphic of Harlem, which was edited by Alain Locke. He explained his admiration of what could be called 'black soul'. In the late 1940s Barnes met Horace Mann Bond
Horace Mann Bond
Horace Mann Bond was an American historian, college administrator, social science researcher, and the father of civil-rights leader Julian Bond. He earned a master's and doctorate from University of Chicago, at a time when only a small percentage of any young adults attended any college...
, the first black president of Lincoln University
Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)
Lincoln University is the United States' first degree-granting historically black university. It is located near the town of Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. The university also hosts a Center for Graduate Studies in the City of Philadelphia. Lincoln University provides...
, a historically black college in central Chester County, Pennsylvania
Chester County, Pennsylvania
-State parks:*French Creek State Park*Marsh Creek State Park*White Clay Creek Preserve-Demographics:As of the 2010 census, the county was 85.5% White, 6.1% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American or Alaskan Native, 3.9% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian, 1.8% were two or more races, and 2.4% were...
. They established a friendship that led to Barnes' inviting Lincoln students to the collection. He also ensured by his will that officials of the university had a prominent role after his death in running his collection.
Barnes limited access to the collection, and required people to make appointments by letter. Applicants sometimes received rejection letters "signed" by Barnes's dog, Fidèle-de-Port-Manech. In a famous case, Barnes refused admission to writer James A. Michener
James A. Michener
James Albert Michener was an American author of more than 40 titles, the majority of which were sweeping sagas, covering the lives of many generations in particular geographic locales and incorporating historical facts into the stories...
, who gained access to the collection only by posing as an illiterate steelworker. In another, Barnes turned down T.S. Eliot's request with a one-word answer: "Nuts."
It was not until 1961 that the collection was open to the public regularly two days a week. That schedule expanded slightly in 1967. Up through the early 1990s, long after Barnes's death, access to the collection was extremely limited, and the foundation restricted the reproduction in color of many works, so they could only be seen in person. The collection had difficulties raising enough money from attendees to provide for needed renovations to its building, as well as regular operating expenses. The Foundation decided to send 80 works to be exhibited on a three-year tour to raise money for needed renovations. The paintings and other works attracted huge crowds in numerous cities.
Because of these restrictions, many people never saw works that were part of the "conversation" of artists and history. For example, the critic Hilton Kramer
Hilton Kramer
Hilton Kramer is a U.S. art critic and cultural commentator.Kramer was educated at Syracuse University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Indiana University and the New School for Social Research. He worked as the editor of Arts Magazine, art critic for The Nation, and from 1965 to 1982,...
wrote of Matisse's Le bonheur de vivre
Le bonheur de vivre
Le bonheur de vivre , is a painting by Henri Matisse. In the central background of the piece is a group of figures that is similar to the group depicted in his painting The Dance ....
: "owing to its long sequestration in the collection of the Barnes Foundation, which never permitted its reproduction in color, it is the least familiar of modern masterpieces. Yet this painting was Matisse's own response to the hostility his work had met with in the Salon d'Automne
Salon d'Automne
In 1903, the first Salon d'Automne was organized by Georges Rouault, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Angele Delasalle and Albert Marquet as a reaction to the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon...
of 1905."
The Foundation became embroiled in controversy due to a financial crisis in the 1990s, partially related to longstanding restrictions on public access resulting from its location in a residential neighborhood. After a court challenge and resolution of legal issues, the gallery holdings are to be relocated from Lower Merion to a new building sited in Philadelphia on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Benjamin Franklin Parkway is a scenic boulevard that runs through the cultural heart of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Named for favorite son Benjamin Franklin, the mile-long Parkway cuts diagonally across the grid plan pattern of Center City's Northwest quadrant...
, for enhanced public access; the opening is scheduled for 2012.
Later life, death, and legacy
Barnes and his wife Laura purchased an 18th-century estate in West Pikeland Township, PennsylvaniaWest Pikeland Township, Pennsylvania
West Pikeland Township is a township in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 4,024 at the 2010 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of , of which , or 0.20%, is water....
, and named it "Ker-Feal
Ker-Feal
Ker-Feal, built in 1775, is a historic fieldstone dwelling located in West Pikeland Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 7, 2003....
" (Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
for “House of Fidèle”) after their favorite dog. Barnes had brought the dog home from Brittany during an art-buying trip to France. Barnes died on 24 July 1951, in an automobile crash. 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.
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
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
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. 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.
The 2009 documentary film The Art of the Steal
The Art of the Steal (film)
The Art of the Steal is a 2009 documentary film about the decades-long efforts to resolve financial problems of the Barnes Foundation, an esoteric collection of mostly Modernist and post-Impressionist artworks, resulting in the officers' decision to break Albert C. Barnes's will and relocate the...
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 RussellBertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
in the 1940s
1940s
File:1940s decade montage.png|Above title bar: events which happened during World War II : From left to right: Troops in an LCVP landing craft approaching "Omaha" Beach on "D-Day"; Adolf Hitler visits Paris, soon after the Battle of France; The Holocaust occurred during the war as Nazi Germany...
. 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
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
and the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
, had been impressed by Russell's battles with the Establishment
The Establishment
The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...
, and invited Russell to teach philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at his Foundation. Russell invited Barnes to his cabin in Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. At a surface elevation of , it is located along the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America. Its depth is , making it the USA's second-deepest...
, 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. 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
History of Western Philosophy (Russell)
A History of Western Philosophy by the philosopher Bertrand Russell is a conspectus of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratic philosophers to the early 20th century. Although criticised for its over-generalization and its omissions, particularly from the post-Cartesian period, it was a popular...
.
The two men later fell out after Barnes was offended by the apparently snobbish behaviour of Russell's wife Patricia
Patricia Russell (nee Spence)
Patricia Russell, , was the third wife of the philosopher Bertrand Russell. She was a significant contributor to Russell's work, History of Western Philosophy....
, who insisted on calling herself 'Lady Russell'. Barnes wrote to Russell, saying 'when we engaged you to teach we did not obligate ourselves to endure forever the trouble-making propensities of your wife', and looked for excuses to dismiss Russell. In 1942, when Russell agreed to give weekly lectures at the Rand School of Social Science
Rand School of Social Science
The Rand School of Social Science was formed in New York City by adherents of the Socialist Party of America in 1906. The school aimed to provide a broad education to workers, imparting a politicizing class-consciousness, and additionally served as a research bureau, a publisher, and the operator...
, Barnes dismissed him for breach of contract, claiming that the offer of the extra $2,000 was conditional upon his exclusively teaching at the Foundation. Russell sued for loss of $24,000 (the amount owed for the remaining three years of the contract), and in August 1943 was awarded $20,000 – the amount owed less $4,000, which the court expected Russell to be able to earn from public lectures for the remaining three years.