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

Art in America, March, 1994 by Anne Higonnet

Most private museums, including the Barnes and the New-York Historical Society, do not enjoy such arrangements, however. Or at least they do not enjoy them as much as they need to. What is interesting about the Barnes case is that rather than explore the wide variety of options shuffled through by the New-York Historical Society, it chose to cave in right away to the values of the blockbuster-type museum show.(14)

The still-unfolding saga of the Barnes Foundation's struggle to break indenture and to escape financial ruin is bizarre and tortuous. No one has done anything criminal, but few have behaved honorably. The basic story is clear enough now, though many of the details are in dispute. The main actors are: Richard H. Glanton, president of the Barnes Foundation's board of trustees15; J. Carter Brown, former director of the National Gallery;, multibillionaire art collector Walter H. Annenberg; the de Mazia Trust; and the combined forces of the Friends of the Barnes Foundation and the Concerned Students of the Barnes, two associations comprising more than 750 past and present students.(16)

Glanton, an attorney with clear political ambitions, was a prominent fund-raiser for George Bush in the 1992 presidential election. He seems to court publicity through controversy. In July 1990, as a result of his position as legal counsel for Lincoln University, Glanton became president of the Barnes Foundation. Almost immediately, he was quoted as saying that "the bylaws and strictures of the foundation's trust indenture are not carved in stone."(17) Neither Glanton nor the other four Barnes trustees have any art experience, so they are aided by an art advisory committee, which includes Kirk Varnedoe, director of MOMA's painting and sculpture department; Anne d'Harnoncourt, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Gary Tinterow, curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Richard L. Feigen, a prominent art dealer; and Tom Freudenheim, assistant secretary for museums at the Smithsonian Institution.(18)In November 1990, Glanton invited Annenberg, a man with a long record of hostility toward the Barnes Foundation, to join the art advisory committee.(19) Then the story shifted into high gear.

In March 1991, Glanton's board, strongly backed by Annenberg, petitioned the Orphans Court to allow several deviations from the Barnes's indenture. Most dramatically, they sought the power to sell up to 15 paintings. As in the case of the New-York Historical Society, this intention to deaccession was met with outrage from an array of powerful art professionals; the Association of Art Museam Directors planned to oppose the sale in court.(20) According to Varnedoe, most members of the Barnes's own art advisory committee opposed the move. Feigen was especially vocal in his opposition and the first to state his objections publicly; he opposed selling the works not only because alternate solutions were available but also because the profits projected from the sale "had nothing to do with the work that needed to be done."(21) Glanton abruptly dismissed Feigen from the committee. Annenberg resigned from the committee in April but continued to support Glanton.