December 4-10, 2003

cover story

Thy Will Be Done?

Henri Rousseau's Unpleasant Surprise takes center stage in one of the collection's 24 in-house galleries. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

The fate of Albert C. Barnes' amazing art collection heads to court.

by Deborah Bolling

On a sunny autumn day, the walk to the Barnes Foundation from the Merion railroad station is long, yet quite lovely. Disembarking the R5, guests travel past a leafy park with tall shade trees and a tiny, sparkling brook.

Shortly off the main road is Latch’s Lane, a wide street on a hill, teeming with stately homes, majestic driveways and pristinely manicured grounds. A quarter-mile up, amidst a lush 13-acre arboretum, is the Barnes Foundation, an elegant limestone mansion designed by French architect Paul Cret. Since 1922, this Lower Merion Township establishment, founded by Albert Coombs Barnes, has been home to scores of magnificent works of original art. It’s hard to comprehend that this idyllic experience is a mere 20 minutes from Center City. What’s even harder to comprehend, though, is how much turmoil the Barnes Foundation has generated since opening its doors more than 80 years ago.

On Monday, after months of delay and opposition, the disposition of the will left by Albert C. Barnes and the future location of his multibillion-dollar collection will go before a Montgomery County judge.

Barnes said that the Foundation was established to "promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of fine arts and horticulture." In his will, he insisted that his collection never be classified as a museum, nor moved from its Lower Merion home (where he also resided). He also demanded that individual pieces not be sold and that Lincoln University, a historically black college, be charged with its safekeeping. Since Barnes was known for tinkering with his will over the years, some have taken issue with the reliability of its final form.

The proposed move to Center City, bolstered by three philanthropic foundations offering to invest millions of dollars in the gallery if it relocates to Benjamin Franklin Parkway, will face its only legal challenge by three Barnes students. The three, whom the judge will allow a limited role in the hearing, will assert that relocating the collection will diminish its educational purposes and malign Barnes’ intentions. The final decision, which requires the overturning of Barnes’ will, now rests with a judge -- 52 years after Barnes was hit by a truck and killed.

Barnes was an extremely successful Philadelphia physician of modest beginnings. While definitions abound to explain who Barnes was and how he lived, "eccentric iconoclast" seems to be the most succinct. His life was exemplified by an assortment of talented and interesting friends, a distinct sense of personal morality, a total disdain for Philadelphia blue bloods and a great eye for art.

Born in Kensington in 1872, he was the son of a butcher, raised in the slums of South Philly. He attended Central High School and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. By age 20, he was a doctor. Shrewd, abrasive, ambitious and smart, Barnes eventually came to amass one of the finest art collections in the world -- and the loathing of his peers.

He made his first fortune in pharmaceuticals, patenting Argyrol, a drug used to treat gonorrhea. In 1929, when he sold the patent along with his business, the A.C. Barnes Company, it was literally hours before the Great Depression struck. His well-timed decision made him rich. Even prior to amassing his wealth, though, Barnes was indulging in one of his passions: collecting the art of the masters. Well-known for his brief trips abroad to collect original pieces of work, he always paid a price below market rate, but one considered fair to the artist.

Today, the Barnes gallery collection includes 181 Renoirs, 69 Cezannes, 60 Matisses, works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Seurat and scores of other notable European and American greats. It also boasts a dizzying array of African, Asian and Native American art, sculpture, antique furniture, ironwork and delicate Greek and Roman antiquities. In total, today the collection comprises approximately 9,000 impeccable objects of art.

Sculpture by modernist Jacques Lipchitz. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Among art lovers, the Barnes Foundation is a standout.

"What Dr. Barnes did in 1922 was that he taught people how to look at paintings by analyzing the quality of the painting by color, light, line and space," says Ruth Preucel, a 30-year patron of the Barnes Foundation and a Lower Merion resident. "Barnes was way ahead of his time, but he was such a bastard that he infuriated Philadelphians. In many ways, he did such wonderful things. I think the place is fabulous -- even though he was as crazy as the day is long."

The unusual gallery is awe-inspiring. In room after room, the artwork is presented with Barnes’ own quirky aesthetic. Van Goghs hang alongside El Grecos; a Picasso complements an African bone-and-wood sculpture. An oversize Matisse mural (inspired by a visit to the Barnes by the artist) provides an awning above a row of French windows. Beautifully carved high-backed chairs, leather-bound chests, pastel-colored pottery and filigreed ironwork are carefully interspersed throughout. Still hanging where Barnes placed it decades ago, the impressionist and post-impressionist artwork occupies nearly every inch of wall space, leaving only glimpses of the fine burlap upon which it is displayed. Barnes even considered the bucolic view through the windows when showing off his finds.

"Everything in this gallery is placed in a certain way, everything has a particular meaning," says Barnes art instructor Lonnie Graham. "You don’t come to the Barnes to look at the work, you come to look at the experience."

No one can really say when the troubles started at the Barnes, or from where they truly stemmed, but they have been persistent over the years. Perhaps Barnes’ troubles began when he shunned the art elite of Philadelphia, identifying them as snobs and scoundrels -- and they returned the compliment. Perhaps it was the fact that, unlike most of his contemporaries, he employed blacks alongside whites in his pharmaceutical factories, and that during an era notable for its blatant racism, he embraced African-American culture without apology. As a child, Barnes’ mother often took him to African-American Methodist camp meetings. It was there, Barnes once said, that he developed both a fascination and an appreciation for the culture.

In a 1925 essay titled "Negro Art and America," he wrote, "The contributions of the American Negro to art are representative because they come from the hearts of the masses of a people held together by like yearnings and stirred by the same causes. It is a sound art because it comes from a primitive nature upon which a white man’s education has never been harnessed. It is a great art because it embodies the Negroes’ individual traits and reflects their suffering, aspirations and joys during a long period of acute oppression and distress." Not surprisingly, missives like this generated lots of criticism -- and suspicion.

But perhaps Barnes’ troubles really crystallized in 1950, when he decided that upon his death he would leave his collection in the safekeeping of Lincoln University, a historically black university in Chester County. While provisions in his will stipulated that five trustees would always oversee the Foundation, the Lincoln University board of trustees would be charged with nominating four. Thus, Lincoln University, the country’s oldest black college, became responsible for overseeing one of the most important cultural institutions in the world.

"There was always the perception that we had control of the Barnes, but that was never true," says Frank C. Gihan, president of the Lincoln board of trustees. "If Barnes had said in his will that he wanted us to have it, things would have been different. What was missing was anything beyond the nominating. We could assure diversity on the board. We could assure an interest in the African-American community. We could assure that the powermongers would not get [their] claws in the collection. That was Lincoln’s role. But what was missing was any direct benefit for Lincoln."

For more than a decade, the gallery suffered a glut of fiscal woes, resulting in part from a series of often unsuccessful but expensive court challenges against the township by former Barnes Foundation president and Lincoln University general counsel Richard Glanton. To offset the losses, last year the Barnes board made a stunning move. Unbeknownst to the Lincoln trustees, who despite nominating the members were very often excluded from their plans, the Barnes board filed a petition in Montgomery County Orphans Court to limit the university’s control of the Foundation and to relocate its gallery to Center City. To sweeten the pot, a trio of high-profile philanthropic foundations offered to bail out the financially strapped Barnes -- for a price.

In exchange for an attractive $150 million endowment, part of which would be used to move the collection and erect the new building, the Barnes Foundation needed to do two simple things. First, move the entire collection to a more accessible space on Benjamin Franklin Parkway -- near the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Rodin Museum, The Academy of Natural Sciences and The Franklin Institute. (Reportedly, nearly $100 million for this effort has already been raised.) And secondly, drastically reduce the governance by Lincoln University.

In September, as the Lincoln board debated the pros and cons of their diminished role at the Barnes, Gov. Ed Rendell, himself a Lincoln University trustee, offered the school his fundraising powers. According to reports in The Philadelphia Inquirer, notwithstanding the final decision, Rendell said he promised to help find $150 million for the school to build two new buildings. He also offered to help the school raise a $100 million endowment. If the struggling state-related university needed any more coaxing, Rendell said the three philanthropic organizations had jointly pledged to contribute $1.25 million to support and expand an art education program between the university and the Barnes. The only hitch: If the Lincoln board voted against the move to the Parkway, in all likelihood the collection would be subsumed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Lincoln would be out of the picture entirely.

The new scheme has drawn the support of the Lenfest and Annenberg foundations and Pew Charitable Trusts. Two weeks ago, Pew officials announced that in anticipation of the proposed move to Center City, they had successfully petitioned for a change in their IRS filing status from private foundation to public charity. As a result, if Barnes does win permission to relocate, they could take charge of administering the hefty endowment. Not surprisingly, Rendell and Mayor John Street have rallied around the idea of moving the Barnes for its obvious tourism benefits.

"We would do anything to get the Barnes here," says Barbara Grant, Street’s director of communications. "Then we would have the Calder [a forthcoming sculpture museum], the Rodin [Museum], the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Franklin Institute. It doesn’t get any classier than that."

Currently, the Youth Study Center at 20th and Callowhill streets is the "preferred location," but Grant points out that a firm decision about a new site for the Barnes will not be made until after the case is settled.

"The mayor has always been supportive of the move -- and supportive of Barnes," she adds. "Most particularly, he is hopeful that the outcome still preserves a substantial relationship between Lincoln and the Barnes, because that was the intention of Barnes’ will."

In death, as in life, Barnes was adamant that his collection not be governed by the very institutions he despised. And while the suggestion to move it to Center City may seem sound -- a collection of this magnitude should be enjoyed by as many people as possible -- Barnes’ will must be overturned to make it happen. And it’s Barnes’ will that has so many people up in arms.

Barnes Foundation Executive Director Kimberly Camp.

"In the Barnes case, the state is now willing to address the question of whether the will is at variance with the public good or the public interest," says attorney Rotan Lee (who shares the WURD-AM airwaves with City Paper senior writer Daryl Gale Friday mornings). Lee points to the Steven Girard Trust as the only possible precedent for the Barnes case. In that instance, which occurred in 1848, Girard bequeathed a school and orphanage for fatherless white boys. As time went by, however, the limitations of his bequest were challenged as being racially biased and were, in fact, overturned.

"American jurisprudence runs to the SWAG theory: the Sophisticated Wild-Ass Guess," Lee says. "No one knows for sure what will happen and different courts can come to different conclusions. But a man should have a right to draft a will and determine what becomes of his bequeath after his death. Barnes was an eccentric, at least, and the Barnes Foundation is a potpourri, an amalgam of art. Who knows what he thought? You only have his will to go by."

Barnes met Horace Mann Bond, then president of Lincoln University, in 1946. The two became acquainted at a funeral for a Lincoln graduate held in Chester County, where Barnes kept another residence. Barnes staunchly believed that art should be used as an educational tool. What better place to institute that idea than on a campus full of students, summarily shunned from society, who may have otherwise never had that kind of exposure?

"This whole thing is awful, awful, awful," says Julian Bond, civil rights activist, national chairman of the NAACP and the son of Horace Mann Bond. "Albert Barnes left definite directions about how and where his art would be displayed -- plus, he had a lifelong enmity towards the Philadelphia art community. That’s why he entrusted it to Lincoln University. Now, his worst nightmares are coming true. With a wink, a smile and a handshake, Lincoln has traded away a [multibillion-dollar] art collection."

Under the stewardship of Lincoln University, unfortunately, the Barnes appears to have languished for years. Despite the link between the university and the Foundation, no curriculum was ever initiated to incorporate the collection into the fine arts programs. In addition, for years, trustees for the Barnes were often also trustees of Lincoln’s board, creating an obvious conflict of interest. In particular, according to John Anderson, author of Art Held Hostage: The Battle over the Barnes Foundation, when Lincoln University president Niara Sudarkasa was on the Barnes board, her support of Glanton’s plans for the Foundation often conflicted with the letter of Barnes’ will. Their partnership prompted a loss of confidence throughout the art world.

"The Barnes has a fabulous African art collection. I think it’s criminal that we didn’t take advantage of it in the past, but we didn’t have the right relationship," says Gihan. Now serving a one-term post as chairman of the board, he graduated from the university in 1972. "We had never received money [from the Barnes] or any grants, and never had any fundraisers for Lincoln. It’s unfortunate that in the 50 years that we’ve been affiliated with the Barnes, none of those things have happened."

Three years ago, despite its astonishing collection, the Barnes Foundation admitted it was experiencing financial troubles. Another provision in the will dictated that the collection remain private, open to invited guests only, usually students and teachers. In 1961, the Foundation opened its doors to the public two days a week for a $1 admission fee. Forty years later, it is open just three days a week and the admission fee is now $5. Some have suggested that, to generate income for the collection, both the fees and the hours of operation be increased.

"The Barnes Foundation needs money," says Executive Director Kimberly Camp. "Regardless of who spent the endowment, how it happened, who was at fault, who points the finger -- the bottom line is we need money. We are not going bankrupt. We are not broke. We are poor. On a $4.5 million-a-year budget, we manage 150 acres of land and 12 buildings that range in age from 1775 to 2002. We have 9,000 works of art. We have 13,000 photographs. … We have an archival collection of about 800,000 documents. The total value of the collection has been estimated to be anywhere between $25 billion and $70 billion. We’re doing all that on $4.5 million. ...If I had $5 for every time somebody mentioned the Barnes Foundation, we’d be just fine."

Barnes’ will also dictated that his collection never be moved, sold or classified as a museum, but rather stand as an educational experience -- in both art and horticulture.

"Moving the gallery will change the Foundation forever -- there’s no way to get around that," Camp says. "The trees in the arboretum … are not just ephemeral, but an essential part of our collection. [If it moves to the Parkway] it is not going to be replicated. You can’t replicate an arboretum. … Barnes talked about this as an experiment in education. It is a heuristic approach to education that continually changes direction, changes scope, changes approach towards promoting democracy in education. The ideas that are behind the creation of this organization in many ways are extremely complex, but in other ways are so simplistic and idealistic that they’re sort of easy to glance over."

In the early 1990s, the Barnes found itself similarly strapped for cash. More important, at that time the building had fallen into disrepair. The president of the Barnes board was Glanton, who was also general counsel for Lincoln. Despite strict directions in the indenture to the contrary, Glanton convinced a Montgomery County Orphans Court judge to allow for a one-time-only traveling exhibition of the art to raise money for the much-needed repairs. When the tour was over, the Barnes had raised $17 million, but the judge’s orders restricted use of the money to renovations only. The pricey refurbishment reportedly cost around $12 million.

While Barnes had generously left $6 million in his original endowment (it would be worth more than $70 million today), he also left directions that the money could only be invested in government bonds. At the time, that appeared lucrative. But during the past 50 years, the endowment’s earning power diminished greatly as the bull stock market outpaced the bond market. The money raised on the tour afforded the Foundation the opportunity to rehab the building, but for day-to-day expenses, the Barnes was still struggling. Glanton, known for his crafty business skills, had another bright idea: install a parking lot on the grounds to accommodate more guests than Barnes had originally approved. More guests would mean more income for the Foundation. While the parking lot made perfect business sense, it flew in the face of the neighborhood residents, who loathed the thought of streams of tourists clogging their quiet streets with excessive traffic. When the town’s zoning board refused to approve the request, Glanton launched a lawsuit under the Ku Klux Klan Act, citing violations of the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment. If, up to this point, Glanton had suspected the township of racial discrimination, the gloves were now clearly off. An extremely costly court fight ensued.

"I saved the Barnes for eight years. I kept the wolves at bay," says Glanton, laughing. "Five years from the time I departed, it was broke. But it would be extraordinary to change the will. There is no precedent for what they’re doing. And is it in [Barnes’] interest and the interests of the students [of Lincoln University] for this to occur? Absolutely not."

Author John Anderson (Art Held Hostage), doubts whether Glanton, in his dual role as Barnes president and Lincoln lawyer, ever really cared about anything other than himself.

"To Richard Glanton, Lincoln was not the big leagues," Anderson says. "During his nearly 10-year reign, there was no interest from the Barnes for Lincoln -- even though he was counsel for the university and a Barnes trustee. Glanton wanted to be a star and he was yearning for a stage. Using the art for Lincoln was not one of his priorities."

Anderson points out that Glanton rode high on the success of the world tour, often taking all credit for any advances made at the struggling institution.

Still, Glanton remains steadfast in his opposition to the Center City move.

"The Barnes Foundation was not created to promote tourism in Philadelphia," Glanton writes in a 2003 Daily News op-ed titled "The Foundation Must Honor Albert C. Barnes’ Will." "If you balance Barnes’ wish of promoting education and cultural diversity against the City of Philadelphia’s desire to bring in revenue by increasing tourism, it becomes clear that Barnes’ intentions should prevail and the responsibility of promoting tourism should not be hoisted on the back of Albert Barnes. … It is my strong belief that the Barnes Foundation should not be relocated and that Lincoln should not lose control of the Foundation. Further, it is of utmost importance that the Foundation carry out the donor’s intent and for the Trustees to protect that right at all costs."

Among the solutions Glanton has proposed to keep the Barnes Foundation afloat in Lower Merion is the sale of one of the collection’s nearly 1,200 paintings. He says he believes a single canvas could fetch as much as $100 million. While this would also require altering Barnes’ will, many point out that sales of non-displayed artwork and the trebling of gallery admission fees are alternative remedies available to the court.

"The taking of the Barnes from Lincoln is another shameful present-day stain on the sad legacy of racial indifference to Americans of African descent," says Glanton, now a senior vice president of Exelon in Chicago. Although his tenure as Barnes president ended in 1998, he remained a board member until July 2003. "When I realized that people had been put on this board to faciliate a big lie to justify taking away Lincoln’s control of the Barnes Foundation, I resigned."

Under the new proposed plan for the Barnes, Lincoln University would now be allowed to nominate five trustees, but the board would expand to 15, with 10 other trustees being nominated by the new leadership. Lincoln’s 80 percent share of board nominees would be reduced to a third. For months, the Lincoln board strenuously objected to the revisions. However, a few months ago, that changed.

"We saw that there was really no great advantage in our being able to nominate four of the five trustees," says Gihan, who assumed the chair earlier this year. A member of the board since 1997, he served as vice chair in 2002. "That was demonstrated by the current board members when they filed the petition and didn’t inform us. The relationship with the Barnes had soured over the years -- and Richard Glanton is probably at the center of the whole thing. When Glanton was president, we were engaged in a number of lawsuits. He was more interested in having a role on the Barnes board than on the Lincoln board. We became a conduit for him, and that was unfair. But we’ve remedied that by no longer allowing anyone to serve Lincoln and the Barnes at the same time. Now there’s no self-interest. I believe this is the best position we’ve been in in our entire history."

Gihan, who is also director of community relations for the Chicago Tribune and president of the Chicago Tribune Foundation, says that if Barnes’ will is overturned, he’s been assured that the relationship between the art collection and the university will finally flourish. The new goal, he says, is to secure an educational partnership with the Barnes, no matter where it is.

A second-floor mezzanine draped in Navajo rugs and blankets. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

"At the end of the day, we asked ourselves, what do we gain by insisting that we maintain control of the board [of trustees]?" he explains. "We decided that we’d be back where we were -- only poorer [after costly litigation]. So now we ask ourselves, how do we leverage the attention on Lincoln to tell our story and how do we benefit our students? And that became our strategy and why we changed direction. The results will tell whether or not we made the right decision."

Kimberly Camp, who admits that as an administrator, she has no real influence over the final outcome, points out that less onus rests with decisions made by the Lincoln trustees than with the zoning limitations imposed by the township. She says rigid rules imposed by Lower Merion have had a direct impact on the Barnes’ financial solvency.

"The situation right now is we are limited to less people per week as visitors than Episcopal Academy can have each day in their student body -- 1,300 students," she complains. "Through our parking lot, right there, is St. [Joseph’s University]. They have 6,000 students. Around the corner are Akiba Hebrew Academy and the French International School. This is, in a conservative estimate, an educational community of 8,000 students. The Barnes is limited to 1,200 people per week, 400 a day, pulsed in at 20-minute intervals by advance reservation only."

Camp believes the Foundation’s treatment by the township has been unusual and unfounded.

"I have never been in a situation where we have been under such constant supervision and harassment," she says.

Two years ago, when the Barnes approached the township zoning board requesting the right to hold outdoor fundraisers, they were again met with great resistance. Today, despite the organization’s new leadership, Camp acknowledges that bad blood still exists. Perhaps it’s due to a long history of mutual antagonism. Obviously, this well-heeled community isn’t fazed by the threat of expensive lawsuits.

"We all agree that it’s a great institution if it can function and we can still have peace and harmony within the neighborhood," says Bob Duncan, director of building and planning for Lower Merion Township. "The zoning board tried to find that happy medium, but not overwhelm the neighborhood with its impact. When Mr. Glanton took over at the Barnes, he wanted to change it into something with much more public access. The zoning board heard what the Barnes wanted to do, but it also listened to the neighbors. I have not spoken to anyone who said they did not want the collection there, but not to the detriment of the neighbors."

What Duncan did not say, but what has been documented in newspapers and court filings, was that at the core of most of Glanton’s discontent with the town was his accusation that race unfairly played a role in the residents’ opposition to the Foundation.

For years, a number of philanthropic organizations have had designs on the Barnes. After all, it does house an enormous treasure. For special projects, foundations have contributed modest amounts of money to help the suburban art gallery. However, many art lovers agree that moving to a more central location in Philadelphia -- to serve a larger public without small-town restrictions -- could make Philadelphia a world-class art hub.

"In his lifetime, Cezanne painted only three oversize paintings," says Jeff McMahon, a former Lincoln University art teacher. "Today, one is in the National Gallery of London. Another is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The third is at the Barnes. If the Barnes were to move to the Parkway, it would make Philadelphia home to one of the most important art collections in the world -- second only to Musée d’Orsay in Paris. It will be tremendous."

McMahon regrets that the relationship between the Barnes and the university may have been squandered.

"The students have no idea about the Barnes," he says. "I don’t want them to lose out on the collection [if it moves], but the way it has been working up to this point hasn’t worked too well. In 1951, when Barnes decided to do this, it was a gesture about race relations. If that can be continued, that’s important. But things have changed. Now, it’s not about a racial experience, but rather a financial one."

Camp says both issues may still be relevant.

"This is not about Lincoln," she says. "But, one of the reasons Barnes was vilified is because he had the kinds of attitudes towards race and class and education that we would now herald. In fact, what Barnes was doing in 1927 was saying this Foundation’s public component is for people whose station in life -- or race -- did not afford them a quality art experience at a time when most of Philadelphia’s institutions were segregated. For him to make statements like that, in the founding of this institution, was radical. At its core, the Barnes had a mission of social justice. And it has impacted the way people have seen this organization, and still does."

Camp is sober about the upcoming hearing, saying she trusts the wisdom of the Montgomery County judge and his appreciation for the Barnes as it already exists, but she can’t predict the outcome.

"I want everybody who reads your paper to send me a hundred bucks," she suggests. "Then we can go forward from a different perspective. Not one of being desperate, but one of making decisions because they’re the right decisions to make. For people who believe in this, that’s how they can empower us."