Philadelphians - tell me the inside word on the Barnes Collection

Cafe Society
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We’ve recently started streaming Netflix here in Australia (through a DNS change, woot!) and watched The Art of the Steal the other night. Found it really fascinating, the idea of a multi-billion dollar collection worth literally nothing since it can’t be sold, and the serendipitous manner of the collection being assembled.

But while the documentary (and Wikipedia to a certain extent) hint at corruption within the Foundation and the local governments, we found it hard to get a objective view of the story. The current location of the collection doesn’t seem to be that far out of town, and we couldn’t understand the pressure to move it into the city, other than to protect it from decaying - but why couldn’t the money being raised be used to upgrade the existing building? There seems to be more to this story than we can gather over the net, and wonder what the consensus is from people who live within the city.

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I grew up on the Main Line not too far from the Barnes. Back in the '60s, student groups were allowed in by very careful appointment, and other patrons only if they checked to see you had dirty fingernails and a Communist Party card (OK, I exaggerate a *little *bit). But it was set up as “a museum for the Working Man” and was not easy to get into.

I think this changed in later years (I moved away in '75). But I remember it perfectly: room after room of fat orange nudes by Renoir; lots of Impressionists (I loved the Modiglianis).

The City of Phila. for years wanted it moved where it would bring in more revenue: oddly, on the impossible to get to area near the Phila. Art Museum, off on the edge of the city. The Main Line neighbors wanted it the hell away from there, as it is a residential neighborhood not set up for cars and visitors. Narrow, winding streets, no parking lots.

I have not really kept up with all the ins and outs: I know they sold off some of the collection, which was a huge scandal, as crazy old Barnes himself laid out every *inch *of that place, inside and out.

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as i understand it…

the trust was set up so that the collection was available to students over museum patrons. the public was allowed 2 days and xxx amount of visitors per day. art students had the collection to themselves to study the other days. the art could not go on tour, could not be changed, could not be sold. very much like the gardner museum.

to raise revenue to repair and up keep the collection the trustees wanted to add more public hours to view the collection. perhaps send some on tour to raise revenue. also the phila. art musuem always had an eye on it.

finally the trustees took it to court to try to add more hours, and more trustees. they wanted to go from 5 to 15. some of the potential trustees would not agree unless they could petition to move the collection to phila proper to gain more revenue.

the final decision was to move to a new building in phila., next to the rodin museum. the building interior is to mirror as closely as possible the old barnes building, so the collection is laid out very close to what was set in the trust.

the “youth study center” was torn down and juvie hall moved elsewhere (east falls for now, finally west phila in 2013) and the new building is to be done and ready for opening in spring 2012. it is expected to be very, very busy over the summer of 2012. gaining big revenue for the trust.

phila. was rather happy to remove the ysc from the parkway. the building was not in the best repair, and having a “juvie facility” on very high foo-foo real estate was a bit embarassing. there were many attempts to move it, but until the real possibility of getting the barnes, nothing really came of it.

now philly is going whole hog over revamping the parkway. the sidewalks are being redone and enlarged. the green spaces are being overhauled to have very nice landscaping, a cafe has been added, new fountains are being installed, etc. the big push of “museum row” is taking off.

in an odd aside… when the ysc was being demolished, a red tail hawk pair’s nesting tree was disturbed. the hawks relocated to the franklin institute. the franklin institute was thrilled to have them move over and have placed a very nice nest box on the favoured window; with a web cam. they have been following them for a few years now. (i bet the academy of natural sciences are very, very, jealous.) there are hawk watchers that watch over the fledgelings while they are learning to fly and hunt.

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The current location is barely outside city limits – in a pricey residential neighborhood that has never been particularly happy about hosting the amount of traffic that would like to see the collection, let alone the amount it has gotten under a series of agreements between the various groups involved. Money to upgrade isn’t the issue as much as the logistics of finding the space to control parking and traffic in a residential neighborhood.