Albert Coombs Barnes (January 2, 1872 - July 24, 1951) is an American chemist, entrepreneur, art collector, author and educator, and founder of the Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania.
Video Albert C. Barnes
Early life and education
Albert Coombs Barnes was born in Philadelphia on January 2, 1872 for working-class parents. His father, butcher John J. Barnes, served in the American Civil War in Company D of the 82nd Infantry Infantry Infantry. He lost his right hand in the Battle of Cold Harbor. After the war, John Barnes received a disability penalty of $ 8/month, and took up jobs such as an inspector, night watchman, and mail carrier when he could find him. Albert Barnes's mother, Lydia A. Schaffer, was a devout Methodist who brought her to meetings of American camps and revivals. The family lived first at 1466 Cook Street (now Wilt Street) in the rough working class neighborhood of Kensington, and later in the slums known as "Neck" or "Dump".
Albert Barnes finished elementary school at William Welsh Elementary School in 1885. That year, Barnes was one of two boys from his school received at High School, a highly respected public school for his strict academic program. Barnes graduated at the age of 17 on 27 June 1889 with A.B. degree, part of class 92. At Central Barnes befriended William Glackens, who later became an artist and advised Barnes on his first gathering effort.
Barnes went on to attend medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, enrolled in September 1889 and received his title on May 6, 1892. He got his way with tutoring, boxing and semi-professional baseball playing. In 1892, he was apprenticed at the Polyclinic Hospital in Philadelphia and at the Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh. He was also listed as a physician assistant at the State Hospital for the Crazy in Warren, Pennsylvania in 1893. His experience as an apprentice doctor convinced him that he was not suitable for clinical practice. Although he obtained a medical doctor's degree, he never practiced.
Barnes decided to pursue an interest in chemistry as applied to medical practice. He traveled to Germany, then a chemistry and education research center, studied in Berlin around 1895. Returning to the United States, he joined the pharmaceutical company HK Mulford in 1898. The company sent him back to Germany to study at Heidelberg, a town that Barnes described as "loadstone [sic] for scientific investigators of every country." According to Archiv fÃÆ'ür Experimentelle Pathologie und Pharmakologie he was among those who received first and second experience, given on 26 June 1901, from the Pharmakologischen zu Heidelberg Institute.
Maps Albert C. Barnes
Careers
In 1899, he went into business with the German chemist Hermann Hille (1871-1962), and created Argyrol, a silver nitrate antiseptic used in the treatment of eye infections and to prevent newborns of blindness caused by gonorrhea. Second left H.K. Mulford and Company to set up a partnership called Barnes and Hille. The new company was founded in 1902. Hille runs the production and Barnes runs the sale. The company prospered financially, but the relationship between the two men was diminished. In 1908 the company was dissolved. Barnes went on to form the A.C. Barnes Company and registered trademarks for Argyrol. In July 1929, Zonite Corporation of New York bought A.C. Barnes Company. The move was timely as the stock market crashed in October of that year.
Marriage and family
Barnes married Laura Leggett (1875 - 1966), daughter of a successful grocery store in Brooklyn, New York. They have no children.
When the Barnes Foundation was founded, Laura Barnes was appointed vice-president of the supervisory board. After the death of Captain Joseph Lapsley Wilson, he became director of the Arboretum. In October 1940, he started the Arboretum School of the Barnes Foundation with the botanist John Milton University Fogg Jr. He teaches plant materials. He regularly corresponds and exchanges plant specimens with other major institutions, such as Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
He succeeded her husband as president of the Foundation after his death in 1951. He died April 29, 1966, leaving his art collection to the Brooklyn Art Museum.
His work was recognized by the 1948 Medal Memorial Schamfer of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. In 1955, he became an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects. He received an honorary doctorate in horticulture from St. University Joseph in Philadelphia.
Art collection
In 1911, Barnes reconnected with his high school classmate William Glackens and in January 1912, just after the age of 40, Barnes sent him to Paris for $ 20,000 to buy a painting for him. Glackens returned with 33 works of art.
Following the success of Glacken's buying campaign, Barnes went to Paris twice, the same year. In December, he meets Gertrude and Leo Stein and buys two of his first Matisse paintings from them. Barnes purchased his African Art collection from art dealer Paul Guillaume (1891-1934), who served briefly as Barnes Foundation's "foreign secretary".
The collection changed throughout Barnes's life as he obtained the pieces, moving them from room to room to room, gift pieces, and selling them. The artwork at the Barnes Foundation reflects how they were hanged and placed at the time of his death in 1951. There are more than 4,000 objects in the collection including over 900 paintings and nearly 900 pieces of wrought iron. Some of the major possessions include: 181 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 69 by Paul CÃÆ' à © zanne, 59 by Henri Matisse, 46 by Pablo Picasso. In 1923, Barnes bought Le Bonheur de vivre (The Joy of Life), a painting once owned by Gertrude and Leo Stein, purchased from Christian Tetzen-Lund through Paul Guillaume for 45,000 francs. In 1927, he bought Renoir's The Artist's Family from Claude Renoir via Galerie Barbazanges for $ 50,000. The collection also includes many other paintings and works by leading European and American artists, as well as African art, Chinese, Greek, and Native American art.
The Barnes Foundation
Barnes had a long-standing interest in education, he held a two-hour employee seminar at the end of the day at his factory. At the seminars, the main workforce in African America will discuss philosophy, psychology, and aesthetics reading James, Dewey, and Santayana. With friends and mentors John Dewey, he decided to expand his educational endeavors. In December 1922, the Barnes Foundation received a charter from the state of Pennsylvania as an educational institution. He hired Franco-American architect Paul Philippe Cret to build a gallery, residence (administration building), and service building. Gallery serves as a teaching tool for students to learn art using methods based on scientific methods. Barnes consulted attorney Owen J. Roberts (1875-1955) when making the legal rules of an indenture. In 1925, the buildings were completed and the Barnes Foundation was opened. These collections are not traditionally hung, but are arranged in "ensembles" arranged according to the formal principle of light, color, line, and space. Barnes's focus is on art itself rather than its historical context, chronology, style, or genre. Barnes does not provide documentation on the meaning of each setting.
Operation
Because the Barnes Foundation is an educational institution, Barnes limits access to collections, and often requires people to make appointments by mail. He often denied visitors who wrote and asked to be visited. He especially does not appreciate the rich visits and the right to ask and often roughly answer them. In 1939, Barnes sent a letter, disguised as a secretary, telling Walter Chrysler that he could not visit because he (Barnes) "should not be disturbed during his tough attempt to break the world record for swallowing gold fish."
Influenced by the Philadelphia Museum of Art's decision about a collection of donated art from his late lawyer, John Graver Johnson, Barnes wanted to make his intentions clear in the Foundation's indentation and trust. He stated, "all paintings must remain in the right place at the time of the death of Donor [Barnes] and his wife who is said." The specific setting of painting and art has remained the same since he died in 1951.
Litigation to open the Barnes Foundation to the public began seven months after Barnes's death. In March 1961 it opened to the public on Friday and Saturday, then expanded to three days a week in 1967, following the death of Mrs. Bartnes in '66, and remained that way until the 1990s. Barnes also has strong feelings for color photographs of the collection because the quality is not equivalent to the current technology. In connection with the request for color photographs written Ny. Barnes to Henri Matisse: "Although there is an increase in the process of photography, it does not precisely reproduce the exact colors of the artist and there is further difficulty in making color plates for a book." Attitude is often criticized, critic Hilton Kramer writes about Matisse Le bonheur de vivre : "because of its long sequestration in the Barnes Foundation collection, which never permits reproduction in color, it is the smallest, familiar to the modern masterpiece, but this is Matisse's own response to the hostility his work encountered in the Salon d'Automne of 1905. "
Relationships with the art world
In 1923, the public performances of Barnes's collection at the Academy of Fine Arts of Pennsylvania proved that it was too avant-garde for most people's tastes at the time. Some of the headlines from that time were, "The Academy Opens Important Exhibits: Modern Art Bewilders" and "American Temple $ 6000,000 For All Craziest 'Art'." The critics make fun of the show, pushing Barnes' long-term antagonism and being well publicized against the people he considers to be part of the founding of art. For example, he told Edith Powell, from Philadelphia Public Ledger, that he would never become a true art critic until he had a relationship with ice man.
Barnes's interests included what came to be called the Harlem Renaissance, and he followed the artists and writers. In March 1925, Barnes wrote the essay "Negro Art and America", published in Harlem's "Survey Graphic", edited by Alain Locke. Barnes also continues to support young African artists and musicians with scholarships to study at the Foundation. At the suggestion of Charles S. Johnson, he recognized artists Gwendolyn Bennett and Aaron Douglass (1898-1979) as a scholarship student in 1928. Douglas continued to illustrate books and paint mural before going to study and work in Paris. Barnes awarded scholarships to singers James Boxwill and Florence Owens to study at the Foundation, as well as funding violinist David Auld to study at Juilliard School, and for singer Lillian G. Hall to attend Westminster Choir College in New Jersey. In 1943, Barnes sent California musician Ablyne Lockhart to the Deep South to get acquainted with his "roots". Lockhart sent a clear description of Barnes's life about his journey, including the spiritual transcription he had heard while visiting St. Island. Helena in South Carolina. Barnes's support of African Americans goes beyond cultural discipline. As early as 1917, Barnes helped African American workers buy homes in Philadelphia. In the early 1930s, he gave a scholarship to Philadelphia physician DeHaven Hinkson to study gynecology in Paris. She also paid for the education of Louis and Gladys Dent, the children of Jeannette M. Dent, the AC Staff employee's widow, the Manual Training and New York Youth Industry School, an example of her constant commitment to her employees and their families. "
Publications
Barnes wrote several books about his theory of aesthetic art. He is assisted by his staff of education, whom he also encourages to publish their own writing. From 1925-26, he and staff published an article in the Journal of the Barnes Foundation.
- Art in Painting (1925).
- The French Primitives and Their Form from Their Origin Until the End of the 15th Century (1931), with Violette de Mazia (1899-1988). A native of Paris, when he was a teacher at the Foundation; in 1950, Barnes appointed him as Director of Education.
- Renoir Art (1935), with De Mazia.
- Art Henri-Matisse (1933), with De Mazia.
- Art CÃÆ'à © zanne, with De Mazia.
- Art and Education (1929-1939), with John Dewey, Lawrence Buermeyer, Thomas Mullen, and De Mazia. These were collected essays by Barnes, Dewey, and his education staff, originally published in the Journal of the Barnes Foundation (1925-1926). (Barnes hired Buermeyer (1889-1970) and Mullen (1897-), a former student of Dewey, respectively to serve as Assistant Director of Education for a while; Dewey was the Director during this period in what was essentially an honorary position.) Li >
Next year
In 1940, Barnes and his wife, Laura, bought an 18th century land in West Pikeland Township, Pennsylvania, and named it "Ker-Feal" (Breton for "House of Fid̮'̬le") after their beloved dog. Barnes asked art dealer Georges Keller to adopt and bring the dog he met while on holiday in Brittany, France to Merion.
In the late 1940s, Barnes met Horace Mann Bond, Lincoln University's first black president, a historic black college in south Chester County, Pennsylvania. They made friends that brought Barnes to invite Lincoln students to his collection. In October 1950, he changed the household rules that placed seats on the Supervisory Board to "... be filled by the election of people nominated by Lincoln University..." also added that "no guardian will be a member of the faculty or Board of Trustees or director of the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Bryn Mawr, Haverford or Swarthmore Colleges, or the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. "
Relationship with Bertrand Russell
In the 1940s, Barnes helped save the career and life of the leading British philosopher, Bertrand Russell. Russell lived in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the summer of 1940, short of money and unable to earn from journalism or teaching. Barnes, who had been rejected by the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, had been impressed by Russell's battle with Establishment. He invited Russell to teach philosophy at his foundation.
Russell invited Barnes to his shack in Lake Tahoe for a discussion. He was awarded a five-year teaching contract with an annual salary of $ 6,000, then raised to $ 8,000, so Russell could give up his other teaching assignments.
The two men then fell after Barnes offended by the behavior of Russell's wife, Patricia, who insisted on calling himself 'Lady Russell'. Barnes writes to Russell, saying "when we invite you to teach, we are under no obligation to endure the tendencies that make trouble from your wife," and to find a reason to fire him. In 1942, when Russell agreed to give a weekly lecture at the Rand School of Social Sciences, Barnes fired him for breaking the contract. He claims that an extra $ 2,000 a year from his salary is dependent on Russell's teachings exclusively at the Foundation. Russell sued and was awarded $ 20,000 - an outstanding amount of less than $ 4,000 and the Russell court expected to earn an income from teaching in a three-year period.
Death
Barnes died on July 24, 1951, in a car accident. Driving from Ker-Feal to Merion with his dog Fid̮'̬le, he failed to stop at the stop sign and was beaten by a truck at the intersection at Phoenixville Pike in Malvern. He was killed instantly. Fid̮'̬le was badly injured in the accident and put on the spot.
The Barnes Foundation in the last few decades
From 1990 to 1998, Richard Glanton served as President. During his tenure, a number of paintings were approved by the Montgomery County Orphanage Court to tour and raise money for renovations. From 1993 to 1995, The Great French Paintings of Barnes Foundation: Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Early Modern were exhibited. The paintings and other works attract large crowds in seven international cities.
In 2002, the Foundation appealed to the Montgomery County Orphanage Court for permission to expand the Supervisory Board and move the gallery collection to Philadelphia and in December 2004 the court approved the petition. A new building designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien architect at Benjamin Franklin Parkway opened on May 19, 2012.
Note
Further reading
- Hart, Henry. Dr. Barnes of Merion: An Appreciation . New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Company, 1963.
- Wattenmaker, Richard. Painting and American Work on Paper at Barnes Foundation. Merion: The Barnes Foundation; New Haven: working with Yale University Press, 2010.
- Dolkart, Judith, and Martha Lucy. Masterworks: The Barnes Foundation . New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications Inc., 2012.
- Home & amp; Park , December 1942 vol. 82, no. 6.
- Barnes and Beyond. Dir. Art Fennell. Fennell Media, 2014. DVD.
- Barnes Collection. Dir. Glenn Holsten. PBS, 2012. DVD.
- Collector: A brilliant, vibrant and sometimes difficult investigation of personality behind Barnes's collection . Dir. Jeff Folmsbee. HBO, 2010. DVD.
Source of the article : Wikipedia