The Magazine
The Barnes Foundation
In his May 31, 2010, cover article titled “No Museum Left Behind,” Lance Esplund paints a detailed and idealized picture of the Barnes Foundation and adopts wholesale some of the common misconceptions about the upcoming move of the foundation’s collection to Philadelphia and the reasons for it. Regrettably, when it comes to his coverage of the history and aims of the foundation, and the circumstances that led to the move, Mr. Esplund simply repeats worn-out and misleading tales about the foundation.
Mr. Esplund bemoans the breaking of Albert Barnes’s will. The truth is that Barnes’s will was not broken and was not at issue in the proceeding before the Orphans’ Court seeking approval for the move. For the record, Barnes’s will is a simple document limited to reiterating that the collection was given to the foundation prior to his death; bequeathing to the foundation the land and buildings in Merion, as well as Barnes’s country property known as Ker-Feal; and giving the residue of his estate to his wife, Laura.
The relevant document is the indenture of trust, which established the mission of the foundation and gave governance responsibility to a board of trustees. Barnes established the foundation in Merion. He understood, however, that the situation could change and there might be a need to move if the collection no longer could be maintained in Merion. A fact frequently ignored by opponents of the move is that Barnes actually anticipated the possibility of a move of the collection to Philadelphia in paragraph 11 of the indenture, which reads in relevant part:
Should the said collection ever . . . become impossible to administer the trust hereby created concerning said collection of pictures, then the property and funds . . . shall be applied to an object as nearly within the scope herein indicated . . . such application to be in connection with an existing organization . . . in Philadelphia, Pa., or its suburbs.
Indeed, one of the primary purposes of the proceeding before the Orphans’ Court was to divine, as best as possible, the intent of Barnes. Following years of litigation, including weeks of hearings, review of voluminous archival materials, and consideration of the numerous alternatives that had been put forth, the court came to the reasoned conclusion that the move was consistent with and furthered the mission of the institution established by Albert Barnes.
Mr. Esplund relies on a recently published article by the art dealer Richard Feigen to support his claim that the foundation’s trustees did not do enough to try to keep the collection in Merion. Mr. Feigen’s solution was to sell Ker-Feal and works of art from the collection to raise money for an endowment. This prescription, which stands in direct opposition to Barnes’s express wishes and the ethical standards widely accepted by other collecting institutions, was examined carefully and rejected by the court.
Mr. Esplund also alleges that Lincoln University was bribed out of its inherited responsibility to the foundation. Lincoln never had direct governance responsibility for the foundation. Lincoln’s power has always been limited to the right to nominate prospective trustees; it never included the authority to place Barnes trustees on the board. Whether nominated by Lincoln or not, each foundation trustee owes his/her fiduciary duty to the foundation and not to Lincoln University.
The article also perpetuates the fiction that there was a vast conspiracy to undermine the wishes of Barnes. According to Mr. Esplund’s sensationalized telling of the history, “the Barnes’s enemies and detractors—led by Pennsylvania governor Edward G. Rendell, then-Philadelphia mayor John Street, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Lenfest and Annenberg Foundations, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art—kept after it,” and all conceived of a new tourist-focused Barnes in downtown Philadelphia to further their own interests. The fact is that after exploring numerous other alternatives, the chairman of the Barnes Foundation Board of Trustees, Dr. Bernard Watson, approached Pew, the Lenfest, and Annenberg Foundations, all distinguished Philadelphia area philanthropic institutions, regarding a possible plan to move the collection to Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Museum of Art has had no role in the move.
Mr. Esplund spends a large portion of the article describing in great detail the art works and other elements comprising the ensembles and visual connections in the galleries. He ultimately and disingenuously implies that when the collection moves these unique connections will be lost through a “Frankenstein’s monster-like revivification.” Despite his facile attempt to suggest otherwise, the new galleries will retain the scale, proportion, and configuration of the existing galleries and, through an interior garden, will reinforce the connection between art and nature.
Finally, Mr. Esplund cites the upcoming move of the Barnes collection as the harbinger of a broader decline of respect for donor intent, a betrayal of the public trust, and erosion in responsible museum stewardship. With a more complete consideration of the relevant facts, the decision to move the Barnes is nothing more than a reasoned and rational response to a complex situation. Moreover, the decision was ratified by a concerned court through a litigation process that placed a sharp focus on the question of donor intent. Despite its sensationalistic appeal for the purpose of a magazine cover, the move is not the result of a grand conspiracy to betray the wishes of Albert Barnes, nor does it signal a falling of the skies for American museums.
Brett I. Miller
general counsel
Barnes Foundation
Philadelphia, PA
Lance Esplund responds:
First, let’s put things in perspective. Brett Miller, Governor Rendell, the Lenfest and Annenberg Foundations, and the Pew Charitable Trusts, among others, support the Barnes Foundation’s move from its original and perfectly workable home in Merion, PA, to an inferior and bloated replica currently being built next to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in downtown Philadelphia. The proposed cost of the new facility is $150-200 million ($30 million of which will be paid out of tax dollars). The supporters claim that the Barnes has run out of money and is no longer feasible in Merion. Yet the truth is that the supporters of the move have never proven the sensational claim (stated again in Mr. Miller’s letter) that “the collection no longer could be maintained in Merion.” This is an opinion, rather than fact. Mr. Miller is himself repeating worn-out and misleading tales about the foundation and the reasons for its move.
He also claims that the board of the foundation considered numerous options before deciding on removal. Yet the alternatives have never been publicly detailed, and the board’s meetings were held behind closed doors. From a public viewpoint, the sole solution to the problems facing the Barnes was to move the collection to Philadelphia. The fake Barnes will increase operating costs many times, and its proponents have no sound business plan for supporting the new facility. The Barnes claims that 60 percent of its future operating income will be provided by visitor revenue. Yet visitor spending amounts only to 10-30 percent of the average art museum’s annual budget.
To justify the removal of the collection to Philadelphia, they rely, as Mr. Miller notes, on a clause in the Barnes Foundation’s indenture of trust (a nearly 8,000 word document commonly referred to as “Albert Barnes’s will”). Mr. Miller cites the clause but omits an interesting bit of wording. The clause actually begins: “Should the said collection ever be destroyed.” This suggests not that the Barnes’s artworks can be picked up and moved willy-nilly, but that if the Barnes is “destroyed,” its assets (“the said collection of pictures”) can and should—as a last resort—be relocated. Barnes was considering the very worst possible scenario. No one would advocate that, merely because the indenture forbade the removal of pictures, the Renoirs, Cézannes, and Matisses stay where they are if the gallery is on fire.
Albert Barnes’s indenture also states:
After [Barnes’s] death no picture belonging to the collection shall ever be loaned, sold or otherwise disposed of. . . . All the paintings shall remain in exactly the places they are . . . the administration building is to be used as class rooms and to serve the general purpose of the Barnes Foundation, that is the promotion of the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts. . . . It is further stipulated that the identity of the [Barnes Foundation] as an educational institution is to be preserved for all time [and] is not to be merged in or absorbed by any other institution.
It stipulates that “both the art gallery and arboretum . . . are integral”—inseparable—that to break one from the other is not only unthinkable but literally to destroy the foundation. The truth is that, far from wanting to adhere to Barnes’s wishes and intentions, the proponents of the move have asked the courts to alter the indenture’s bylaws in many places—wherever it suited their own needs. Having been successful in Orphans’ Court, they can now legally move the collection to Philadelphia to become an overcrowded tourist attraction; lend and market artworks; mount traveling shows; and throw parties for patrons in the galleries. Contrary to Mr. Miller’s assertion, all of this in no way “further[s] the mission of the institution established by Barnes.”
Mr. Miller deliberately misrepresents the article by Richard Feigen—a former member of the Barnes Foundation’s art advisory committee—printed in the Art Newspaper hoping to discredit a widespread and sustained criticism of the plan to move the Barnes. Mr. Feigen’s solution was to sell “unrestricted” artworks and real estate, an action that is in no way forbidden under museum association guidelines. As I said in my essay, Mr. Feigen (again, contrary to Mr. Miller’s assertions), was dismissed by then Barnes Foundation president Richard Glanton because he refused to support Mr. Glanton’s plans to deaccession artworks from the foundation’s galleries. Judge Stanley Ott of the Orphans’ Court said in his December 13, 2004, decree that the foundation had every right to sell its unrestricted assets.
Mr. Miller alleges that Lincoln University was not “bribed out of its inherited responsibility.” He also claims that Governor Rendell (a former mayor of Philadelphia) and the involved philanthropic trusts were not concerned with furthering their own interests and boosting downtown tourism. Yet, in the recent documentary film The Art of the Steal, D. Michael Fisher, a federal appellate judge and former attorney general of Pennsylvania, illuminated with remarkable candor not only the essence of the nonprofit takeover of the Barnes board of trustees, but the painfully obvious conflict of interest for the Lincoln University trustees, who in September 2001 withdrew their legal challenge to the Barnes petition to change its charter and bylaws (stipulated in the indenture of trust), including moving the Barnes art collection to Philadelphia, in exchange for $80 million in state funding for their capital campaign.
Mr. Fisher said:
It was pretty clear to me that they [the philanthropic institutions championing the move] weren’t going to give $50, $70, $100 million without getting control of the Barnes board. I had to explain to them [Lincoln University’s Board of Trustees] that maybe the attorney general’s office would have to take some action involving them that might have to change the complexion of the board. Whether I said that directly or I implied it, I think that they finally got the message.
In “Just What the Doctor Ordered?: The Doctrine of Deviation, the Case of Doctor Barnes’s Trust and the Future Location of the Barnes Foundation” (Real Property, Probate and Trust Journal, Winter 2005), lawyer Jonathan Scott Goldman wrote:
The impracticability of keeping the Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion is a result of the influence of a number of outside charitable groups, each with its own agenda, separate and distinct from that of Dr. Barnes. If the financial assistance contemplated by the Pew Charitable Trust and the Lenfest Foundation was not conditioned on a move from Lower Merion to Philadelphia, permission for such a move almost certainly would have been denied.
As far as the part played by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Mr. Miller states that the PMA “has had no role in the move.” It would be more accurate to say that it did absolutely nothing. If the PMA had strongly voiced a desire that the Barnes stay where it is (the ethical decision); if they had offered aid or promised to treat it as an annex (as the Metropolitan Museum of Art treats the Cloisters, for example), the move of the Barnes would never have been contemplated. The directors of our major museums view themselves as guardians of our visual culture, and they weigh in regularly on controversies that engulf museums and art—the “Sensation” scandal, for example, drew open letters and op-eds from the directors of New York’s most prestigious museums in 1999. The fact that the PMA’s late director, Anne d’Harnoncourt, repeatedly declined to support the Barnes’s continued existence in Merion was a nonstatement of great weight in the cultural world. The PMA chose not to get involved in the controversy, but it will, of course, benefit from adding a neighboring museum with the greatest collection of Impressionist, Postimpressionist, and early Modern art in the world to the expanding museum row on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Obviously, some of the supporters of the move believe it is best for American culture that Albert Barnes’s collection exist not in a suburb but downtown in a large metropolis. In a recent Fox News piece on the Barnes, Governor Rendell remarked:
First of all, it was a disgrace that such a limited number of people could see this great collection. A disgrace. . . . The basic display is going to replicate as accurately as possible the way the art was displayed in Dr. Barnes’s house. Now, obviously, it’s going to be larger because one of the things we all wanted to do was to take the incredible art and expose them to more people.
In the 25 years I have been regularly visiting the Barnes, I have never once had difficulty getting into the foundation (and it has never been crowded). Far from a “disgrace,” the Barnes is easily accessible to anyone willing to make a reservation (which we all do perfectly willingly at restaurants) and then make a 20-30 minute car journey from downtown Philadelphia.
There is no way for us to predict exactly how adversely the experience of the Barnes’s art will be affected by its new home and attendance going up five-fold. But one thing is certain: More viewers equal more distractions. And some works of art (Chartres Cathedral, the Great Pyramids at Giza, Fallingwater, the Barnes Foundation) are perfect exactly how and where they are. They do not need politicians to improve them. The Barnes Foundation was and continues to be a unique and radical vision. Its move to Philadelphia will homogenize it.
The move of the Barnes Foundation is legal, but that does not make it ethical. It does not change the fact that it is the greatest preventable cultural tragedy of the present day. Mr. Miller, who ignores the destroying of sightlines between galleries, says that the changes—the addition of more viewers, two disruptive classrooms, a great hall, a restaurant, a gift shop, an indoor garden—are all in keeping with Barnes’s intentions for his foundation. If so, why didn’t Barnes put them there to begin with? Barnes did what he intended, and he then intended things to remain exactly as he set them. This is the inescapable conclusion of any engagement with the terms of the indenture or Barnes’s own writings.
The decision to move the Barnes is about arrogance, avarice, and money. What better indication of this could there be than that the Barnes Foundation’s response to my piece of art criticism comes not from Derek Gillman, the Barnes’s director, but from a lawyer.
After the publication of my article, while I was being berated on the phone by the Barnes Foundation’s director of marketing and public relations for my assessment of the move, I pointed out that he could nitpick my essay to death but that he could not deny that the powers that be were dead set on relocating the Barnes to Philadelphia. I said that if someone came forward today and offered enough money to keep the Barnes in its original home in perpetuity, the foundation would still be moved to the mall on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. My comment was met with absolute silence.
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