Barnes Foundation allowed to loan paintings internationally

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The Barnes Foundation may soon be sharing its celebrated collection of impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern art masterpieces with the world, thanks to a recent court decision.

A decree issued late last month by Montgomery County Orphans’ Court grants the Barnes Foundation the ability — pending approval by its board of trustees — to loan some of its artworks to other cultural institutions. The Inquirer was not able to determine if the Barnes’ board approved the court action.

The court decision also allows the foundation to change the way paintings are displayed within the Barnes’ Philadelphia museum, which will allow more freedom in the way the works are presented.

Departures from Albert C. Barnes’ Indenture

Both new provisions are departures from terms prescribed by the Foundation’s 1922 Indenture and Agreement between the late Albert C. Barnes and the Foundation. That highly restrictive agreement required Barnes’ vast collection of Impressionist and other masterpieces to be displayed as they were in their Merion gallery space before it was moved to a new building in Philadelphia in 2012.

The Barnes Foundation’s move to the Parkway from the Merion location was controversial and hotly contested. Opponents said it went against Barnes’ wishes. However, city officials and philanthropists pursued the move as an enrichment of the city’s cultural life and a boost to tourism.

The new changes seem to have been pursued quietly. No opposition to the changes appears to have been given standing in the proceeding.

Museums loaning their artworks to other cultural institutions is a common practice that enables them to share their treasures with art lovers elsewhere and have that benefit reciprocated. It can also be advantageous financially.

The 1990s lending tour

The Barnes Foundation did hold a one-time-only international lending tour allowed by Orphans Court in the 1990s. The intent was to raise at least $7 million to pay for needed repairs and renovation at what was then the Barnes’ nearly 70-year-old Merion gallery and administration building.

A traveling exhibition of 80 works by Cezanne, Renoir, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, and others was initially approved for stops in museums in Paris, Tokyo, Washington, and Philadelphia, and expanded to the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. The Barnes Foundation president at that time, Richard H. Glanton said the additional money from the two other stops was “desperately needed” to strengthen the foundation’s sagging endowment.

During the tour, “La Danse” by Henri Matisse was damaged. Opponents to the tour and deviating from Barnes’ will said it further proof the artworks should not have been allowed to travel.

Details of the ruling

The court decree stipulates time limits and some other restrictions loaning Barnes artworks. The proposed loan policy entered with the court said the loans of paintings would be made to further the Foundation’s mission “to promote the advancement of education and appreciation of the fine arts.”

The new loan policy comes with a number of limitations. Among them, it stipulates that no more than 20 paintings should be on loan simultaneously, and generally no more than two paintings from a single room; that no painting shall be loaned for more than 12 months in a 24-month period or, in special circumstances, 15 months in a 30-month period; and that a loaned work be in “stable” condition.

In testimony given April 10 before Judge Melissa S. Sterling, lawyers and witnesses for the Barnes made their case based on the premise that it is primarily an educational institution, rather than a museum, according to the court record.

The use of exhibition space is the “lifeblood of museum education,” lawyer Adam T. Gusdorff told the court

He pointed out that Barnes himself loaned works to other institutions, such as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

William Perthes, Barnes director of adult education, testified how Barnes and his teaching acolytes would “regularly” mix and match ensembles of paintings and other works to make points in their teaching.

The restriction on loaning works has limited the kinds of partnerships that the Barnes has been able to do with other institutions, and also limited what and how much the foundation has been able to borrow for its special exhibitions space, testified Nancy Ireson, the Barnes deputy director for collections and exhibitions and chief curator.

“There are only so many times you can knock at your neighbor’s door and ask to borrow their car or ask for a cup of sugar or what have you,” Ireson said. “If you can’t actually reciprocate, there’s a limit to how much you can impose.”

She also testified that she finds it astounding that so many people don’t know about the Barnes.

“It’s one of the world’s greatest collections of paintings from the late 19th and 20th centuries, and it’s relatively unknown because it’s really through the exhibition economy that the word get out,” she said. “People get excited. People want to see these things. They want to share them. And so you really are attracting learners by letting your pieces be seen and telling Barnes’ story in different cities and countries.”