THE GHOST OF DR. BARNES

Old Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania

I yesterday visited the old Barnes Foundation (since moved to Center City, Philadelphia), now converted the Frances M. Maguire Art Museum at St. Joseph's University. I was single visitor.

Eerie. The conversion prompted many memories. Old bones. Old ghosts.

—R.D.C.

The PJ depends on reader support. Please help us by contributing financially to Philabooks@yahoo.com via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via WritersClearinghouse.yahoo.com.| Established 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor © MMXXVI WritersClearinghouse All Rights Reserved.

More Barnes Kvetching....

Dr. Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes and Paul Guillaume

By Robert Zaller Posted 3 June 2014 BroadStreetReview.com

Robert Zaller

My colleague Richard Carreño compares the Barnes Foundation’s art collection, of which some 800 pieces were hung on permanent display in Merion, to that of Paul Guillaume in the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. There are some important differences, however.

 

Read More....

http://broadstreetreview.com/art-architecture/albert-barnes-and-paul-guillaume

 

THE TORTURED LIFE OF SCOFIELD THAYER By James Dempsey

DIAL 'T' FOR THAYER

By Richard Carreño

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

As its editor, patron, and publisher, Scofield Thayer revamped the Dial, an early 20th century literary monthly based in New York, into what today's readers might recognise as a late 20th century version of The New Yorker -- on steroids. Not for the little old lady from Dubuque, nor, really, for the patrician salons of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

 

Thayer (1889-1982) himself was a wealthy, blue-blood (Scofield, PUL-lezze), born in the central Massachusetts mill town of Worcester. In the course six short years from 1920, Thayer harnessed bursts of inspiration and exasperation to interpret a then-burgeoning 'modernist' creativity (in poetry, literature, and art) to a growing urban, upper middle-brow readership. The Dial was a savvy, avant-garde periodical. But Thayer never walked on the wild side, inviting legal censorship.



James Dempsey

In one typical issue alone, his contributors included T.S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, George Santayana, D.H. Lawrence, Gilbert Seldes, William Butler Yeats, and Wallace Stevens. There was never a culture magazine quite like it before, nor arguably one since that could match Thayer's Dial for literary star-power and influence.

 

Thayer published then-controversial writers (including Ezra Pound); thought enough of James Joyce that he gifted him several thousand dollars in today's money; and regularly gave E.E. Cummings a literary platform. (And his blessing to bed is wife. Elaine Orr Thayer was an angelic-looking knock-out, who also liked to screw around).

Tale of Two Museums

Chez Paul at 22 ave Foch

L'Orangerie

 Musée de l'Orangerie and Barnes Foundation Share the Same Muse
By Richard Carreño Bio
[WritersClearinghouse News Service]

Paris

The stats have an eerie familiarity: Scores of paintings by Chaim Soutine, Pablo Picasso, Jean Renoir, Henri Mattisse, Henri Rousseau, Amedeo Modigliani and other Impressionists and post-Impressionists, and all assembled by a fiercely independent collector who pioneered new ground in introducing modern art to 20th century audiences. The Barnes Foundation collection in Philadelphia, maybe? In considering the numbers and artists, American museum-goers can be easily forgiven for free-associating with that Philadelphia institution, the world's largest repository such modern works. And, of course, they would be wrong. At least, in Paris.

Welcome to the Musée de l'Organerie, home of the Walter-Guillaume Collection, an array of 145 paintings that rivals the Barnes as a showcase of many of the same modern artists who once called upon Paris for inspiration and livelihood. For Philadelphians, especially those seeped in the lore of the Barnes collection and its visionary founder, the eccentric, taciturn Dr. Alfred C. Barnes, the Orangerie is a kind of foreign pilgrimage to a place that can rightfully be called the Barnes' French 'bookend,' even its precursor.

That the two museum collections are almost a matched set, in presenting a similar catalogue of artists and their works, is hardly coincidental, in that Barnes (1872-1951) and the Orangerie collection's founder, Paul Guillaume (1891-1934), equally admired and promoted the same favored artists. Similarities between the collectors, who were in equal parts friends, competitors, and business associates, don't stop there.

Berlin's Arts Mojo Returns



Museum Berggruen, Berlin

'RE-GENERATED' ART

BY RICHARD CARRENO
[WRITERSCLEARINGHOUSE NEWS SERVICE]
BERLIN
The 'boys' are back in town.

 

Welcome Matisse, Picasso, Klee. And dozens of other Modernist artists, who, as in the pre-World War II era, are again the talk of town.

 

These mostly 20th-century artists, notoriously labelled by Nazi censors for their advocacy of 'degenerate' art (read Modernism, or 'Jewishness') and who Adolf Hitler personally dismissed as not upholding the Aryan 'ideal' of National Socialism, have found a new, ever-widening berth in Berlin. Once purged and confiscated from then-existing museums and stolen from private collectors, masterworks by these formerly banished artists are now an increasing force within Berlin's ambitiously expanding museum community. This particularly in the last decade as Berlin brims again with Expressionists, Impressionists, and Surrealists in exhibits at the Museum of Design; the Museum of Modern Art, Photography and Architecture; and the Brüke (Bridge) Museum; and even in old venues such as pre-war Old National Gallery. Also add a new exhibit of 450 works by Salvador Dali, each of which would have made Hitler gag.

 

Letters to the Editor



Blowing Smoke
 Dr. Albert C. Barnes, founder of the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

Boo Hoo
Darsh Gone, Dr. Barnes
is Still Getting Dissed

(In response to 'Matisse's Revenge,' published in the BroadStreetReview.com and below).

Thanks for your letter. We'll post it soon.
Sincerely,
Dan Rottenberg
Editor

On Oct 17, 2011, at 8:40 PM....

Comments:
I don't understand why so many presumably well informed writers feel it
necessary to slime Albert Barnes and why editors (Dan?) print this trash. In
a comparison of Matisse collections, is it necessary to allege Barnes'
marital infidelity? Do we need to read ONCE AGAIN that Barnes was
"irascible" and etc and etc ad nauseam? The man was an astonishingly
courageous connoisseur who was widely villified by "experts" and yet
assembled the breathtaking collection we all treasure. Show him some
respect!

Donald Eckard
St. Davids, PA 19087

Dan Rottenberg, Editor
Broad Street Review
1315 Walnut St.
Suite 904
Philadelphia PA 19107
Phone: (215) 735-1455Fax: (215) 735-1455
drottenberg@broadstreetreview.com

Letters to the Editor

My Pal, the Gangsta Scion Walter Annenberg

Oh Yeah, the Author?
That Would Be Me

In response to my article on the Musee Matisse and the Barnes Foundation museum, posted yesterday at the BroadStreetReview.com, BSR received today the following letter from Nick Tinari, a Philadelphia lawyer. The Junto's version of same story is below. -- The Editor.

On Oct 5, 2011,
So rife with inaccuracies and unattributed statements as to be a complete fiction.

First sentence: a first year art student would know that Matisse was not an Impressionist.

Next, the Merion gallery is not a "villa", it was purpose built as a gallery for a school (not a museum) from day one. The author must want to impress readers with his knowledge of touristy sounding words like "villa" and his worldliness at having visited some, but he is completely ignorant of the history of the Barnes Foundation and of architecture in general.

Next, the author cites no source for the statement that Barnes disliked the mural and for the conclusion that the two men parted association. The evidence is to the contrary, since there are Matisse works in the Barnes Foundation that postdate the mural.

I could go on, but I think this is evidence enough that the author is working in the realm of fantasy. Maybe it makes a nice story, but it's not a true story. A true story would be how know-nothings like the author are now running the Foundation and how, thanks to them and the ancient animosity against the foundation of gangster scion Walter Annenberg, the mural will end up in a place the painter and his patron never intended it to be.

nick tinari
jenkintown

The BSR's Editor's Response:

Thanks for your letter. We'll post it soon.

That reference in the blurb to Matisse as an Impressionist was my error; I've corrected it.

Sincerely,
Dan Rottenberg
Editor

Barnes Connection

Tributes to Matisse at his gravesite in  Nice, France.
 Photo: Richard Carreno/Writers Clearinghouse

Matisse's Revenge

By Richard Carreño
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
Nice, France
Think the Barnes Foundation. For a devotee of Henri Matisse (1868-1954), that shrine to Impressionism in Philadelphia comes readily to mind when visiting the artist's eponymously-named museum here. In many ways, the Musee Matisse, founded in 1963 with donations by Matisse's family and with works earmarked by the artist himself, could well be considered a book-end to Dr. Alfred C. Barnes' more inclusive pantheon of Modern Art greats.

On one hand is the Philadelphia-based museum, the world's finest one-stop bully-pulpit of Impressionism, an amalgam of dozens of its stalwarts, an elite cadre from Cezanne (69 pictures), Modigliani (16), period Picasso (46), to Matisse himself (59), an erstwhile associate of the insatiable American collector. On the other is the artist's equally single-minded effort here showcasing the early-20th century genre, filtered through Matisse's own unrivaled lens of sharply-focused color, light, and line. The result: A rich, solipsistic journey through the artist's life-span.

Both museums, finally, are houses of worship. (Though in keeping with more conventional religious practice, entrance to the Matisse chapel here is free, funded by the French state, the city of Nice, and by private donations).

Some comparisons are superficially interesting. Both galleries are located in provincial capitals. The Matisse Museum is located in Nice's Cimiez neighborhood, an affluent residential area in the hills overlooking this otherwise Cote d'Azur resort city. Until recently, since its relocation to Philadelphia's downtown, the Barnes was even more remote, fixed in its original home in suburban Lower Merion, Pennsylvania.

In addition, both museums are located in villas, more like private homes of grandees than public spaces for artistic treasures. At least, the Matisse still is, housed in the Villa des Arenes, a 17th century home of local plutocrats. Its setting is bucolic, set among Roman ruins and a 17th century Franciscan monastery. Until the Barnes Foundation's move to Philadelphia (the new property on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway will debut in early 2012), its museum collection filled a Paul Cret-designed, purpose-built villa in leafy Lower Merion. Dr. Barnes' living quarters were attached.

Significant, too, the museums are conceptually crafted as singular private domains. The Barnes, of course, driven by the vexing, but brilliant vision of its namesake, the fabulously wealthy patent medicine inventor. Matisse himself, his widow, Amelie Matisse-Parayre, and their children were instrumental in creating their family memorial here. The museum includes, on two floors, scores of works in oils, engravings, and decoupages. (Thankfully, it excludes all the crazy-quilt presentation gimmicks that Barnes favoured).

That said, an even greater twinning -- an almost co-sanguine bloodline -- between the two institutions can be argued, given Matisse's professional and personal relationship with the irascible Barnes (1872-1951) and the artist's intimate knowledge of the Barnes venue in Lower Merion. Enter son Pierre Matisse.

In 1930, Pierre was operating an art gallery in New York. En route to Tahiti (in search of sunlight for his palette and inspiration for his metier), father Henri stopped by. Matisse was on another mission, as well, as a judge at the prestigious Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh. That second journey providently involved a side-trip to the Barnes Foundation, where he was welcomed with open arms by Dr. Barnes in full flower and at his vitriolic best. (Barnes attempted to sabotage a lunch date that Matisse had with a Philadelphia grande dame on the same day of of their meeting. Barnes hated all grande dames. Actually, he hated anything grande).

Despite the meeting being truncated (Matisse, in the end, was hauled off to the swank luncheon), the artist and collector hit it off. Barnes spoke fluent French. No intermediaries were necessary. Their liaison was also fortuitous, in that Barnes on the spot commissioned his new associate (the megalomaniacal Barnes would probably think of him simply as a minion) to contribute a mural to the museum's inner court.The result, of course, was the iconic La Danse. (Early studies are on display here).

The languid La Danse, an archetype of Matisse's interpretation of line and figure, actually comes in two completed versions. The first is at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. That's the one that couldn't fit the dedicated wall space in Cret's villa. Instead of tinkering with this work, Matisse just created another. Well, not just. The effort was time-consuming and arduous. In keeping with his character, Barnes had no sympathy for the artist, though Matisse readily admitted that the error in measuring was his alone.

There was more. Though he allowed the masterwork to be installed, Barnes cattily made it known that he actually didn't like it.

This rejection of Matisse, soon after, was at best odd. (OK, not for Barnes). Only a few years later, in 1933, Barnes and his putative mistress, Violette De Mazia, wrote what may still stand as the most definitive (and seemingly sympathetic) treatise of the artist and his oeuvre. Despite the authors apparent good will to the painter, The Art of Henri-Matisse, published by the Barnes Foundation Press, often serves more as a paperweight of almost 500 pages than a readable analysis. (On doctor's orders, bite-sized samples are recommended). La Danse is never mentioned in the book. Ouch!

Barnes' dissing of Matisse was probably for the best as it allowed the artist to escape the toxicity that Barnes had created in correct art circles in Philadelphia and New York. (Barnes had no shame. In the 1940s, he hired then fired eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell as a foundation instructor. Russell sued the litigious Barnes for breach of contract, and won).

Nice, not surprisingly, was a more agreeable venue. Matisse moved here in 1916, and, for the most part, was a resident ever since. He came in search of light, a warming glow that still washes over the azur-colored ocean of the Baie d'Anges and the Promenade des Anglais.

In a sense, Nice is more than simply a museum mecca. It's more like a Matisse mosaic, a patch-quilt of his former residences, all of which are still standing: From the Hotel Beau Rivage on the Avenue des Etats Unis, overlooking the Mediterranean; to the 1 Place Charles-Felix, where Matisse installed new windows in his top-floor studio. The artist never lived at Villa des Arenes. From 1938, he lived nearby at the still-elegant Le Regina, a former hotel that had been converted into apartments. (They still are).

In 1954, Matisse, 85 years old, died, and was buried in a secluded spot in the Cimiez cemetery not far from his museum. His widow, Amelie, joined in him in the sepulcher 1958.

The horizontal stone slab is modest, citing only the Matisses names and birth and death dates. On top, are numerous commemorative do-dads, pine cones, stones, and memorial messages. I left mine.

Appropriately enough, Barnes has no memorial -- other, of course, than his museum. The only official recognition of his death was the flag draping of a suburban Philadelphia fire house. His body was cremated.

---

 

Art Review

Now you see it. Now you don't. The Card Players from Barnes, in photo, at  the Met. Actual painting not on view at Barnes. Photo: Richard Carreno/Writers Clearinghouse

At Met 'Party,'
Barnes Cézanne is No-Show


By Richard Carreño
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service] 
Imagine if the Metropolitan Museum of Art gave a party for Paul Cézanne and two celebrity guests, one from Philadelphia, failed to show up.

hat's what happened this week when the Met, in New York, tried to narrate Cézanne's iconic Card Players compositions in a one-all, tell-all installation. The result was well-conceived, ill-executed; two of the five paintings in the thematic series, including the one held by the Barnes Foundation, weren't there.

In place of the real thing, full-sized photographs of the works figure in the show. Moreover, these MIAs, depicting the largest canvases in the series, are also positioned on featured wall space.



Was the Met's Gary Tinterow, who curated the show in concert with The Courtauld Gallery, in London, trying to tell us something?

Could be. But nuance doesn't come easy to Tinterow, whose personality is as starchy as his title, Englehard chairman of the Department of Nineteeth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art. In other words, he's a one-man band.

The show, titled 'Cézanne's Card Players,' is really a mis-nomer, given that the Met and The Courtauld, where the exhibit was first installed through early this year, knew all along that a more appropriate title would have been 'Cezanne's Card Plays -- Minus Two.' The exhibit runs through May 8.

Actually, it gets worse.


As part of the over-all story line, Tinterow had also hoped to include Cézanne's The Smoker in the show. But that canvas, owned by the State Hermitage Museum, is also missing-in-action, caught up in a diplomatic squabble involving government-run Russian museums over a ruling in a American court. At the heart of the dispute is whether a cache of orthodox Jewish documents in Russia should be transferred to a Hasidic sect, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement based in the United States. Until that issue gets resolved, the Russian-owned works are staying put.

Why the five Cézanne pictures, depicting peasants from Aix-en-Provence intently playing their card games, have not been reunited also involves legalities -- as well as a stifling misunderstanding of public service. Yes, the specter of Dr. Albert C. Barnes (1872-1951), the eponymous founder of the soon-to-be Philadelphia-based museum, again rears his head. The Grinch who won't go away.

'It'd take a court order,' Tinterow told me, when I asked whether he actually had sought the Barnes work. 'It's not going to happen.'

Well, maybe.

The small show, of only about a score of major oils and drawings displayed a foyer and two gallery rooms, is the little engine that could. Despite the contretemps over the missing pictures, Tinterow & Co. were able to enlist other loan-friendly museums in fleshing out Cézanne's exploration in composition, color, and size in the five similar pictures. Two line drawings are on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, an institution whose director, Timothy Rub, appreciates the operative maximum, 'If you don't give, you don't get.'

Credit for getting it also goes to the Worcester Art Museum; the Pierpont Morgan Library; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The three Card Players oils are from the Musée d'Orsay (its version, circa 1892-1896), The Courtauld (also circa 1892-1896), and from the Met itself. The Met's version was created by Cézanne (1839-1906) late in his life, sometime between 1890 and 1892.

A fourth in the series is privately held.


The fifth, created about the same time as the version at the Met, is squirreled away at the Barnes, where it remains grounded, quarantined by of Dr. Barnes' injunction that pieces in his collection never be loaned. The work, amazingly enough, is among about 60 works by Cézanne owned by the Barnes.

Bad guys? Dr. Barnes is surely one. Could his will have been over-riden, as was done allowing the museum to move to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway? Probably. But Barnes director Derek Gilmore and foundation trustees are between a rock and hard place. With the controversy surrounding the museum's Center City move still an open wound, it's likely been decided that over-turning Dr. Barnes' mean-spirited, anti-loan policy needs to wait until the dust settles around the relocation issue.

Yet one wonders, if the Cézanne show had been organized by Michael Taylor, the PMA's modern art curator, whether the Barnes picture would have at least been in the exhibit. An example of Taylor's skill in assembling complex exhibitions, highlighted by a complicated web of loans, will be on display next month when his Marc Chagall show is launched. Taylor is a brilliant tactician. And a master schmoozer.

Meantime, if you hope to round out the Met's 'Cézanne Card Players' experience with a side visit to the Barnes, don't plan on an excursion any time soon. The Barnes' Joueurs de cartes is, according to the museum's website, 'not on view.'

Philly Philanthropists Reach Out to Israel

'New' Israel Museum is Beneficiary

By Richard Carreño

[WritersClearinghouse News Service]

The Art of the Steal, a 2009 'mockmentary' by local director Don Argott, putatively uncovered how the Barnes Foundation was 'stolen' by Philadelphia's Establishment power brokers who, working as a secretive cabal of evil, decreed that the museum move from his established home in suburban Philadelphia to a new venue on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. All that was missing was, cackle, cackle, a witches' brew.

Amid a din-din-din Jaws-like musical leitmotif, the film was more creepy conspiracy than well-crafted agit-prop, a la Michael Moore. Moreover, Steal's theme, how the will and wishes of the foundation's eponymous founder Dr. Albert G. Barnes, were being thwarted by Gov. Edward Rendell, the Pew Charitable Trusts, tourism interests, and other Satanic forces has been oft-repeated, and, by now, a tiresome conceit. Boring.

Anyway, the 'new' Barnes, home to world's greatest collection of French Impressionism, is scheduled to debut next year on Museum Mile. This, despite witchcraft, or -- as more likely the case -- good stewardship by the city's arts community.

The film survives as a curiosity. As well as proof that Dr. Barnes' well-known delusional penchant to view life as a vast conspiracy is still alive in well in Philadelphia.

Otherwise, The Art of the Steal is mostly forgettable.

But not easily forgiven.

Regardless of its risible single-minded silliness, the film is also remarkably slimy.

This is no better highlighted than how the picture mocks Gerry Lenfest and Ray Perelman, then key board members of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and prominent PMA benefactors, as 'spokes' in Philadelphia's Axis of Evil.

Lenfest is slimed with 'a powerful conflict of interest.' Perelman gets slimed as 'a nasty old man.'

***
A recent visit to Jerusalem, where the Israel Museum is located, was perfectly timed. Not by me. Just good fortune. The museum, an encyclopedic repository of Jewish history and art and a clear contender for membership among the world's great museums, had just reopened weeks before after a three-year renovation.

Among other reasons for my visit to Israel, I was eager to see works by Marc Chagall at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and, most important, encounter the so-called Chagall Windows at the Synagogue of the Haddassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, also in Jerusalem.

Again, my timing was fortuitous. The synagogue had also just reopened, after a year's closing forced upon it by structural work that was being undertaken at the hospital.

I was particularly struck by the Israel Museum -- and by the unexpected. Its New York-born director, James S. Snyder, whose mandate was to modernize and reorganize, has in fact recreated the just-45-year-old institution. (In 1965, the embryonic museum was the vision of Jerusalem's legendary mayor, Tedi Kolek).

'Its status and reputation is linked with what has always been a decent display of ancient and contemporary art,' Time Out Israel reported last month. 'But its old structure and outdated layout was cramped and inconvenient -- hence the decision to revamp it almost in its entirety,'

Enter Synder, 58, who joined the museum in 1996.

'...[M]any people do not know what to make of him,' The New York Times recently reported. 'He has never acquired Israeli citizenship or learned more than basic Hebrew. In a country where dressing up often means donning a clean T-shirt, he has kept the look of an Ivy League professor of a generation ago....'

Despite a traditional appearance, Synder introduced one skill to the museum that's thoroughly modern -- fundraising on a worldwide scale. The renovation budget was $100-million.

***

I looked up to a plaque of about about 50 names as I entered the museum. These were major contributors from around the world, and those also willing to donate $100,000 annually to the museum.

Not surprisingly, several of names were those of well-known New Yorkers.

Only one city, Philadelphia, other than New York, had more than one benefactor.

One was Gerry Lenfest. The other, Ray Perelman.

Barnes Joins 'Culture Gulch'

Albert Barnes, above

Sarkozy to be Keynoter at Inaugral?

By Richard Carreño

Junto Staff Writer Bio

French President Nicolas Sarkozy? Word that Sarkozy has been been tapped as the keynote speaker for the inaugural opening of the new Barnes Foundation in 2012 was the hot rumor on the Avenue of the Arts, Parkway division, early this week. Well, why not?

What with $25-billion -- yes, billion -- worth of French-created, or inspired art by the likes of Mattisse, Renoir, Modigliani, Soutine, and others, a tip of the beret, recognizing the Barnes' move from suburban Lower Merion, to Center City sort of makes sense. Also, it makes things interesting.

Sure, building of new museum, at 21st Street, is apace. Even some of the foundation's administrative arm has moved downtown, now ensconced across the street from the construction site in the former home of the Philadelphia School District, now a multi-use facility.

And thanks to the Foundation's website, interested parties can also keep visually au courant with building progress. Yes, the foundation has installed a Parkway Webcam, updated every 15 minutes. It's something like watching water boil. Substitute water for a spade digging a hole.

Ahem, boring. 

There's more. Mix the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the foundation's arts guru Derek Gillman, and the irascible curmudgeon Dr. Albert Barnes, the late, great nemesis of the once-powerful Philadelphia Establishment and the good doctor's pet-peeve, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and, of course, you have the ongoing makings of the Barnes Foundation museum kabuki.

On the heels of The Art of the Steal, the anti-move crowd's cinemac screed against the foundation's neighborhood relocation, only, again, one word comes to mind: 'Boring.' Yawn.

Welcome to Phiadelphia's great new 'Culture Gulch,' where the Barnes is settling in nicely, thank you very much, as the latest addition to the city's other 'Avenue of the Arts,' already topped off with such cultural meccas as the Academy of the Natural Sciences, the Moore College of Art and Design, the Franklin Institute, the Rodin Museum, and at the top of the Parkway, the Big Guy, the Jewel in the Crown, the Art Museum.

Day by day, at the corner of 21st Street, it's the city's most culture-vulture public building project, a 'Barnes raising' like no other. Sorry, Albert. Your 'playpen' has, too, gone all Establishment.

The last time I checked, officially, that is, on the Barnes' building progress was at its ground-breaking, back in November, 2009.

Oh, yes, at that time, don't forget to stir in about 20 protesters, notable for their creative signage ('Crime Scene Do Not Enter') and their Dr. Barnes-like enmity for anyone who'd violate Barnes' sacred memory -- and will.

The occasion was festooned with local arts glitterati, business and fund-raising mandarins, and political grandees who spent their time, before a crowd of about 200, congratulating themselves with more alacrity than an out-of-control Oscar recipient.


Gillman, formerly of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts --that museum just down the Parkway at Broad --- and now the Barnes' well-respected new director, presided. The Lincoln University Concert Choir sang. A gaggle of notables, donning gold-colored construction helmets, acquitted themselves in the customary manner with shovels with silver-colored blades, and everyone drank coffee from power hotel Four Seasons.


The high-octane morning brew didn't seem to do much for Mayor Michael Nutter, usually known for flip quips and humorous zingers, who just dead-panned his delivery on how the Barnes on the Parkway will be 'one of the greatest museums in the world, and it will be right here in Philadelphia.'

Actually, Nutter was funny, when he went on to praise the great works of largely French Impressionism in the Barnes' collection. 'I'm not an art expert,' Hizzoner said earnestly. 'But I know great art when I see it.'
It was that kind of weird.

How weird? Well, when I walked through the gantlet of protesters, picketing on 21st Street, one shouted at me: 'Here's another rich guy.' How weird is that?


The hour-long event, housed under a Cirque-de-Soleil-sized tent, also unearthed some old wounds, namely the anger and frustration expressed by the protesters, coalesced around a group called the Friends of the Barnes, that argues that Dr. Barnes posthumous wishes, will, and sensibility were being violated once again by Philadelphia's rich and powerful.

There's substance to their lament. The Art Museum's late ditector, Anne d'Harnoncourt , and Rebecca Rimel, president of the local Pew Charitable Trusts, have been said to have almost decreed that the move would happen. The Barnes opponents cri de coeur has been picked up by some New York art critics, notably those from The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Still, it's hard to side with self-selective protests. Breaking bequests isn't new to Philadelphia. Was anyone complaining when Stephen Girard's will creating his eponymous college for orphaned white boys was amended from its racist, sexist constraints? And were the New York critics howling when the Museum of Modern Art got a controversial redo a few years back?

Anyway, according to Bernard C. Watson, chairman of the Barnes Foundation board, it was actually the didactic Dr. Barnes himself, the fabulously rich inventor of a patent medicine, who provided in his will a loop-hole that allows the Barnes to move. It was the 'broke' clause. And, Watson said, the Barnes in Lower Merion was dead broke.

Still, amid the back-slapping, defense of the move, and schmoozing (everyone seemed to know everyone), one hero of the moment, Billie Tsien, the new Barnes' architect, seemed to get overlooked.

'I have no idea where she is,' a cheery PR honcho told me. 'She's here somewhere. She's a very short Asian woman with her husband, a very tall man.'

With such helpful, but hopeless advice, I never connected with Tsien, a principal in the New York-based firm, Tod Williams Bille Tsein Architects. (Tod Williams, incidentally, was the 'very tall man.')

Ironically, as Tsien was going mostly unrecognized under the Barnes' Big Top, she was actually getting star billing at the Moore College at nearby on Logan Square. She and Nancy Kolb, head of the Please Touch Museum, now located in brilliantly remodeled Memorial Hall -- the Art Museum's first home, incidentally --were both being honored as Moore's 2009 Visionary Woman Award winners for their significant role in transforming museum space 'leaving an enduring mark on Philadelphia.'

Overall, Tsien's Barnes won't be as breathtaking as her American Folk Art Museum in New York, which received the 2002 Arup World Architecture award for Best Building in the World. But, to my mind, at least, it certainly will be equal in creative concepts to her Skirkanich Hall at Penn. This, especially, since imposed guidelines required Tsien to model her Barnes on some existing architectural and spacial themes of the old building.

Among major design points for the new building, Tsien explained in the Moore exhibit, will be a facade mixture of 'warm grey gold stone interspersed with metal.' And, 'Referring to the Kente cloth of West Africa, we are trying to create a "weave" of materials that will give the building a sense of richness and complexity.'

What did the Big Apple critics think of the then-newly-announced design? Again -- now, almost predictably --they hated it.

They might even hate Sarkozy showing up.

Though by the end of this week, that seemed increasingly unlikely.

After considerable telephone tag, French government officials couldn't be reached.

But I did contact the foundation's well-respected PR guy, Andrew Stewart, who's known for his candor.

'I'd love it. He'd be a person of interest,' Stewart said. 'But there's nothing official. I know nothing about it.'