Moving the Barnes

NY Times ^ | Dec 15, 2004

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

In an act of judicial common sense, a Pennsylvania judge ruled on Monday that the Barnes Foundation - the celebrated but beleaguered private museum in Merion, Pa. - could move to downtown Philadelphia. This decision sets aside the most restrictive aspects of the remarkable estate left by the museum's founder, Albert Barnes. Visitors have been restricted to 1,200 a week, and the foundation's charter prohibited lending or moving the paintings in the collection. The absence of crowds - and the remarkable quality of the collection - created an extraordinary impact on visitors to the museum.

But those very restrictions, and very real problems of financial mismanagement, also essentially doomed the Barnes. It's certainly possible to lament the loss of an almost unrivaled art-viewing experience. But the problems at the Barnes Foundation threatened the art itself. There was simply not enough money to care for the works or the buildings as they should be cared for, and there was no prospect of raising enough money, even by selling land the foundation owned.

In fact, this move will mark a new beginning for the Barnes Foundation, backed by pledges of $150 million for a new building and a substantial endowment. The arrangement of the present museum galleries will be recreated, and the collection will finally become visible to a much larger public in Philadelphia's museum quarter. The most vocal opposition to this move comes from the art students at the Barnes Foundation, who naturally mourn the loss of a unique setting and a unique privilege. But they cannot mourn the undoing of a set of idiosyncratic rules that may have made sense in the 1920's, when the Barnes Foundation was established, but that had begun over time to threaten its very existence.

[Texas_Jarhead]

Judicial activism simply "undoing of a set of idiosyncratic rules that may have made sense in the 1920's"?

[Servant of the 9]

I would ordinarily oppose the violation of the founders explicit wishes, he had reasons for them, but since the trustees have bungled the endowment, there is nothing else to be done.

So9

[HarryDog]

I am not sure about the rules for lending or moving the collection. I say an exhibit of many the paintings at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris in October of 1993.

[HarryDog]

I saw
Not I say