the amazing barnes collection

Yesterday, some 15 years after our first visit, Paula and I made a pilgrimage to Bala Cynwyd, Pa., to visit the world reknowned Barnes Collection. It has more French Impressionists than any museum I've ever seen, all displayed in weird wall designs interspersed with metal hardware—hinges and brackets and decorative wrought iron. Albert Barnes collected much of this art around the turn of the 20th Century before MOMA was dreamt of, before anyone in the U.S. had heard of Picasso or Matisse. And the riches in the little Philadelphia suburb are incredible. More Cezannes and Renoirs than you knew existed. In this cursory (and illegal) scan of one small room, there are a Soutine, one very atypical Picasso and a blue period Pierrot, many Matisses, a Modigliani, a clutch of Braques. There are also Monets, Manets, Rousseaus, Van Goghs—all in the plural. And African, Asian, Native American artifacts are in the mix too. Conglomerate would be the word.
In a year, this collection, after many lawsuits and much conniving, will move to new quarters on Museum Row in Philadelphia. It will not be the same, but the paintings will still be—amazing.