Relocating the Barnes: A symposium

Editor’s note: The following e-mail exchange took place in the wake of the May 21 symposium at Drexel University on the future of the Barnes Foundation, conducted by Broad Street Review contributors Robert Zaller and Gresham Riley.

To: Robert Zaller and Gresham Riley
Gentlemen:

Thank you for a wonderful debate. Gresham and Robert, it was a pleasure to meet both of you.

I myself was a bit taken aback to find myself saying some of the things I did, but, having thought it over, I think I basically meant them. While I regret having perhaps given the impression that I believe that the very same folks who are imposing casino gambling on South Philly are also hijacking the Barnes, I do believe that both projects are being imposed on the community by the rich and powerful for misguided (although perhaps well-intentioned) reasons, and both with the most inappropriate kind of help from the judiciary.

In a way, the moneyed rich who are behind moving the Barnes are both better intentioned and more— hmm, I don't know whether to say badly mistaken or hypocritical. I certainly think that Albert Barnes's ideals about making art available to the masses were, as Gresham suggested, quixotic in 1951 and are now impossible to realize. And I simply don't see what that mission has to do with locating the art on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

The gentleman who talked about the free Philadelphia Orchestra concerts being badly attended was right on, I think. Folks will come from far and wide to see the Liberty Bell— a phenomenon that continues to amaze me— but they won't come in economically sufficient numbers to see Renoir and Matisse.

On the other hand, Gresham, I must admit that if I insist on the sanctity of Barnes's will, then the directives that the art cannot be sold or moved and that the money must be invested solely in railroad bonds and utilities (obviously a disastrous idea today) must be given equal weight. So some intervention by society to preserve the art treasures was going to be necessary in the long run.

When I related all this to my wife, who has lived all her life in Philadelphia, she recalled the period when it was just about impossible to get into the Barnes at all and wondered why nobody brought the issue up. She remembers a campaign by the Inquirer in the early 1960s that to some extent was instrumental in removing those restrictions. We both wonder how the limited accessibility to the Barnes was consistent with Barnes's wishes to make the collection accessible to all. Can any of you guys shed some light on that issue?

Again, thanks for making the rush-hour drive on the Vine Street Expressway worth it. — DAN COREN.

Coren is a music critic for Broad Street Review.


The status quo is the problem

GRESHAM RILEY responds:

You raise two questions, both of which I will answer from my perspective.

As for what relocating on the Parkway has to do with the centrality of Barnes's educational vision for his intended audience, the issues of location in Center City, adequate funding and institutional priorities are essential if Barnes's objectives have any chance whatsoever of being fulfilled. It is not my task to judge how realistic or unrealistic his educational objectives were in the past or are now in the present. I simply believe that an all-out effort must be made to remain true to Barnes's directions, and that up to this point no such effort has been expended nor even intended.

The opponents of the move to Center City put great emphasis on honoring Barnes's will, but they conveniently overlook or deemphasize the objective of providing arts education for a specific audience. From the time of Barnes's death in 1951 to the present, all parties have been in denial about this core feature of his will.

In reading the history of the Barnes Foundation, my sense is that two material conditions made it easy to overlook the education stipulation: location and the lack of adequate funding. In addition, there has been, in my judgment, a lack of will or intent on the part of the Barnes's board, the foundation's administration, and the "friends" of the Barnes to pursue this objective energetically. With a new location (more convenient and hospitable to Barnes's intended audience), more money and a greater capacity to raise money, and a new board not shackled by past biases against an arts education program for working-class people, for the first time in the history of the Barnes Foundation there is a reasonable chance (and I emphasize "chance") for that part of Barnes's will that is most central to be honored.

Not only will it never happen by maintaining the status quo; it won't even be attempted.

As to the 1961 court directive to liberalize the Barnes admission policies, I do not believe there was any desire on the part of the Barnes leadership between 1951 and 1961 to make the collection accessible to all. The collection was viewed as an exclusive teaching tool for a limited few.

This decsion derived from an overly narrow reading of the Barnes Foundation as an "educational foundation" rather than a museum. Unfortunately, "educational foundation" was never interpreted as educational for Barnes's intended audience but rather for a small cadre of cognoscenti. Even after the 1961 ruling, however, the educational program was still run as a private preserve for the select few; only the collection was opened to the public, but even then on a highly restricted basis.

The sad truth of the matter, in my opinion, is that those left in charge of Barnes's trust simply did not share his views about the target audience to receive arts education. Now that this particular issue is being forced (at least by me), the new rejoinder seems to be: "Well, Barnes's objective just isn't realistic." Oh, well…..

Riley is former president of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and president emeritus of Colorado College.


Albert Barnes wanted a school, not a museum

ROBERT ZALLER responds:

It wasn't Lincoln-Douglas, maybe, but I think tonight was useful. I was beginning to wonder what happened to the old-fashioned public debate. (I don't count politicians running for office getting free face time with each other on TV.)

I don't think Dan Coren's analogy to casino gambling was off base. In both cases, you have powerful moneyed interests trying to sell something to the public on the specious pretext of giving it what it "wants," and riding roughshod over local community concerns. In both cases, the argument for revenue enhancement (which seems to trump everything these days in Philadelphia) masks an act of cynical exploitation.

About the issue of accessibility: Albert Barnes never wanted his collection to be accessible to "all"— that is, a public museum. He wanted it to function as a teaching tool for classes of modest size. He set aside one day a week in his will to admit the general public, understanding that the collection had an ancillary value as well— call it, perhaps, recreational— for those who wanted merely to visit.

To construe the Barnes as a museum is to violate Barnes's basic intention, and to treat it as a 24-hour-a-day filling station for the tourist trade is simply to destroy it. If 50,000 people in Philadelphia wanted to hear the Orchestra every week, should we compel it to play in Citizens Bank Park?

The Inquirer did campaign in the 1950s and early 1960s (under Walter Annenberg's instructions) to open the Barnes to the general public. Annenberg, who kept his own collection largely under wraps until he was ready to give it to the Met, scarcely had a public interest at heart. He wanted to pursue his own feud with Barnes beyond the latter's grave, as he now does from his own. How far do you think anyone would have gotten who knocked on his door demanding access to his Cézannes?

Barnes thought his investment restrictions were prudent. They were, for his day. Modifying them would have been a matter of reasonable discretion for the courts, but of course Richard Glanton never asked for this during his tenure as president of the Barnes.

Gresham, I'd like to hear more of your ideas about promoting the Barnes' educational program.

Zaller is a history professor at Drexel University.


An experience that can't be replicated downtown

DAN COREN replies:

I've taken the opportunity to re-read Robert's and Gresham's articles on the Barnes in Broad Street Review. I'm a bit embarrassed, I must say, that I didn't do it before yesterday's debate, because I see that all my questions about the legal hi