home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Time - Man of the Year
/
Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
/
moy
/
042092
/
04209934.000
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-09-10
|
5KB
|
110 lines
CULTURE, Page 87Want to See Some Secret Pictures?
Traditionalists spar with a new leadership over how public the
fabled Barnes collection should be
By DANIEL S. LEVY/MERION STATION
In an era of blockbuster traveling exhibitions,
mass-merchandising museum shops and high-profile curatorial
politics, the Barnes Foundation, housed in a limestone mansion
in suburban Philadelphia, is one of the most striking -- and
perplexing -- anomalies of the international art world. It is
the repository of a fabled collection of Impressionist and
Postimpressionist works (180 Renoirs, 69 Cezannes, 44 Picassos
and numerous Seurats, Gauguins and Modiglianis). Yet because of
the harshly restrictive policies of its embittered
founder-patron, the Barnes has largely withheld its treasures
from public view.
Dr. Albert Barnes, a Philadelphia physician who made
millions from an antiseptic he invented and marketed in 1901,
had a Medici-like eye for art. But his taste shocked the blue
bloods of his day, who scorned him -- and earned his unrelenting
enmity in return. At his death in 1951, he directed that no
picture from his collection could be loaned, sold, reproduced
or even moved from its position on the wall. Future control of
the foundation, he decreed, would be in the hands of trustees
appointed by Lincoln University, a small black college in
Lincoln University, Pa. Since then, alumni of the school he
founded in 1922, which replaced factual art history with a
proto-New Age veneration of beauty, have increasingly formed a
fiercely loyal and protective cult.
The foundation denied the public access to the collection
until a Pennsylvania judge in 1960 forced open the doors for 2
1/2 days a week. Now the trustees, led by Richard Glanton, a
Philadelphia attorney who is general counsel for Lincoln
University and the Barnes' new president, are trying to break
the hold of tradition further and, as they see it, move the
Barnes into the 21st century.
They need court approval to alter the trust, so they have
asked for permission to extend gallery hours, increase the
admission charge and reinvest the foundation's $10 million trust
fund. Security must be beefed up, they say, and the antiquated
galleries need climate controls, new lighting and fire
protection. While those renovations are in progress, the
collection would be removed to an undecided location. Most
radical of all, the trustees are proposing a traveling show of
80 Barnes paintings (possibly among them: Matisse's The Joy of
Life and Cezanne's The Card Player) that would go to
Washington's National Gallery and abroad, from which they hope
to raise $7 million.
The reaction of old-line Barnes adherents to all this can
be described in one word: horror. "It would be a tragedy," says
Rich ard Segal, a former teacher at the Barnes. "To break apart
such a collection would be like taking a masterpiece by
Rembrandt and cutting off a corner of it and selling it." The
traditionalists charge that the trustees' plans will subject the
paintings to too much wear and possible damage. They also fear
that the Barnes education program is being diluted, if not
dismantled.
A counterattack has focused on another of the trustees'
moves, the signing of a $700,000 deal with Knopf to publish two
coffee-table books about the collection. The DeMazia Trust,
founded by one of Barnes' compatriots, has gone to court to
challenge the book contract, which coincided with a $2 million
donation to Lincoln University from the Samuel I. Newhouse
Foundation. One of the heads of the foundation, Samuel Newhouse
Jr., is also chairman of Knopf's parent company. Glanton says
any suggestion of a link is "outrageous" since it "ignores the
fact the ((Knopf)) proposal was the best proposal." Yet other
publishers say they were denied a chance to bid properly on the
books. "From the day I sent ((Glanton)) our proposal letter, I
never heard from him," says Paul Gottlieb, president of Abrams
books. "We were closed out."
Glanton, 45, who has no art background, appears to have
moved aggressively to enforce his policies, which he insists are
intended to ensure "that Dr. Barnes' true intent is actually
realized." Several opponents of his changes have left the
foundation or been dismissed within the past year. Segal claims
he was fired from his teaching post last June after he objected
to a trustees' plan -- since withdrawn -- to sell 15 paintings.
Nick Tinari, one of three students with standing in the court
to represent student interests, was expelled in January.
Conservator Wendy Hartman Samet was dismissed a few days later,
and the following month education director Esther Van Sant
resigned, saying she was "forced out."
The outcome of the Barnes struggle could have wide
implications in the art world. Collectors are watching to see
if later generations will be able to alter their dying wishes,
and museums are wondering if their future plans can be held back
by a hand reaching up from the grave. Both questions may be
answered when the court decides whose version of Barnes' vision
will prevail.