Saturday, July 14, 2012

Dr. Albert C. Barnes

The Barnes Foundation is a museum in downtown Philadelphia 
known for its large collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings. Originally located in Merion, Pa., the foundation reopened at a new site in Philadelphia in May 2012 - a move that has caused much controversy in the art world.
 
The Barnes was founded in 1922 by the eccentric art collector Albert C. Barnes, who amassed hundreds of valuable artworks between 1912 and 1951, the year he died. Dr. Barnes, a chemist who made a fortune after developing an antiseptic called Argyrol, spent years obsessively arranging his collection cheek-by-jowl in the mansion that he built for the purpose. In every detail, the museum reflected Dr. Barnes’s philosophy of art, about which he wrote several books, and his personal tastes, which ran from Old Master paintings to Southwest Indian ceramic pots. He was especially fond of metalwork - decorative door hinges in particular - of which he hung dozens in and among the sculptures and paintings. The neo-classical galleries feature 181 Renoirs, 69 Cezannes, 46 Picassos and 59 Matisses, as well as works by Soutine, Rousseau, Modigliani, Monet, Degas, van Gogh, Seurat and Manet. Paintings often ascend the walls in twos and threes, in unusual juxtapositions chosen by Dr. Barnes himself. 
LINK The Barnes Foundation

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