Whither the Barnes? - controversy surrounding the Barnes Foundation's touring exhibition of French paintings - Cover Story

Art in America, March, 1994 by Anne Higonnet

The original justification for "deviation" from the indenture was the money required to renovate the foundation's building, constructed in 1923-24 by Paul Cret. Although the Barnes has a $9.8 million endowment, it requires approximately $1.1 million for annual operating expenses and, according to the trustees in 1992, needed another $6 million for immediate repairs and upgrading of the building. In short, the Barnes Foundation needed fast cash. And its trustees were so desperate to raise funds that they were willing not only to disobey their institution's rounding charter but also to agree to an exhibition that distorted the institution's original principles.

The Barnes Foundation is not alone in this predicament. Most small, private museums of its type have not aged well financially. Endowments bequeathed decades ago have not kept up with fixed costs or with new museological pressures to stage temporary exhibitions and meet stringent conservation standards. Consider the case of the New-York Historical Society. The society's troubles first became public in 1988 when it admitted that a 1987 deficit of $3.5 million had prompted the trustees to cover new deficits out of the endowment funds. Living off capital is, of course, the cardinal sin of capitalism. The society compounded its dilemma when it attempted another quick fix: selling works from the permanent collection. This is, of course, the cardinal sin of museology and was denounced by museum directors across the country.

Thwarted in its deaccession project by other art professionals, the historical society tried almost every museum trick possible: replacing the director, replacing the board, firing more and more of its staff, mounting vigorous fund drives, closing exhibition spaces, proposing mergers with other institutions, using its collection as collateral to secure a loan from Sotheby's, begging for appropriations from the state legislature and from the city and, ultimately, defining its purpose more narrowly. For now, these strategies seem to have worked, thanks in large part to generous cash infusions--more than $6 million from the state and $6 million from the city. But how often can any one institution expect such bailouts, especially when the entire New York State Arts Council, to put matters in perspective, gets $6 million a year to fund thousands of programs?

Small private museums of the Barnes era now survive financially on their own in one of two ways. Either they have an in-house business that generates income, like the Musee Rodin in Paris, or they have an in-house academic program, like Dumbarton Oaks in Washington.(13) The Musee Rodin owns the exclusive reproduction rights to Rodin's sculptures, whose sales pay for all the museum's expenses; Dumbarton Oaks is affiliated with Harvard University and offers courses in Byzantine art, pre-Columbian art and garden studies, which constantly renew its intellectual prestige and loyal constituency. In both cases the small private museum can still garner adequate outside support and satisfy the evolving desires of a public audience.