I recently watched The Art of the Steal, which is a documentary about The Barnes Art Foundation, which is one of the biggest private art collections in the world. However, the owner of the collection, held it captive from the public eye, by only allowing students and educators of art to view the collection, which was housed five miles outside of Philadelphia in a beautiful stone house, surrounded by an arboretum.
The collection maintained 181 works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 69 by Paul Cézanne, 59 by Henri Matisse, 46 by Pablo Picasso, 21 by Chaim Soutine, 18 by Henri Rousseau, 16 by Amedeo Modigliani, 11 by Edgar Degas, 7 by Vincent Van Gogh, 6 by Georges Seurat. A collection of this magnitude would seem to make sense in a museum, but not when the original owner of each of these pieces before they were even sought after, wanted to keep them for only the people who truly appreciated them. The original collector, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, a medical doctor from Philadelphia, started collecting post-impressionist, and modern pieces in the early twentieth century, when they were still being created, but was mocked by his peers for buying such pieces that were new or "immature" works of art. So he decided to take his newly acquired art and display it in a house where people who truly appreciated it could come and view it. Mr. Barnes charted a school for his collection, in hopes it would last forever as an educational institution.
The foundation has been plagued with controversy over the past twenty years in regards to control over the collection and where it should be housed, but none of the works of art have been sold off. The entire collection did go on a world exhibition in the 80s, to fund renovations for the Barnes Foundation building. In 2008, it was announced that the collection was getting a new home, in downtown Philadelphia. I find it to be very sad that the wishes of the original owner are not being met, by removing all of this beloved art pieces and moving them to the city, where he specifically took them aware from. With that being said, I am dying to visit the new museum to see all the great pieces.
