Displaying items by tag: Barnes Foundation

More than a million people have visited The Barnes Foundation since the art museum moved to Philadelphia from a suburb in May 2012. That's almost three times the number of visitors who saw its extensive collection in its former home in the five years before the relocation.

The foundation's leaders say that growth not only validates the contested and controversial move of the museum and its renowned collection of impressionist, post-impressionist and early modern art, but also indicates a need for further change to build on that success.

Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation has named Dr. Martha Lucy deputy director for education and public programs as well as curator, Thom Collins, the museum’s executive director and president, announced today. The appointment takes effect immediately.

In a statement, Collins said, “Martha is a leader in both the educational and curatorial spheres.

The Barnes Foundation — which is still feeling out its new identity in downtown Philadelphia after relocating in 2012 from its original home in the suburb of Merion, Pa. — announced Thursday that it had chosen Sylvie Patry, a longtime curator at the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, to be its new chief curator and deputy director for collections and exhibitions.

Ms. Patry, 46, is a specialist in Impressionist and Post-Impressionism, which is the strength of the Barnes’s collection, built by Albert C. Barnes, a willful and eccentric pharmaceutical tycoon, and opened in 1922.

Two Cézanne sketches found by conservators at the Barnes Foundation earlier this year went on view at the collection in Philadelphia today. The unfinished works were discovered on the backs of two of Cézanne’s landscapes, “The Chaine de L’Etoile Mountains” (1885–86) and “Trees” (1900), during a routine conservation treatment in 2014. The Barnes Foundation will display the watercolors in double-sided frames, allowing viewers to compare Cézanne’s finished, polished products with his incomplete works-in-progress.

The conservation session that yielded the discovery was headed by Barbara Buckley, senior director of conservation and chief conservator of paintings at the Barnes, with help from conservators from the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts.

Since October, area museums have been resurrecting artists.

Paul Strand was revitalized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art; William Glackens came to life at the Barnes Foundation.

Now the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is featuring Peter Blume (1906-1992), the subject of a fascinating retrospective of 56 paintings and 103 drawings that will remain on view in the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building through April 5. An abridged version of the show will travel to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, where it will be seen from July 5 to Sept. 20.

The Board of Trustees of the Barnes Foundation today announced that they have named Thomas “Thom” Collins as the new Executive Director and President of the Barnes Foundation. An innovative educator, accomplished art historian, administrator and author, Mr. Collins, a Philadelphia native, has more than 20 years of experience at some of America’s top arts institutions. He comes to the Barnes after serving for five years as director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida (PAMM).

“Thom is a national leader in the visual arts and is recognized for his expertise and breadth of knowledge in education and art history. His track record in museum leadership, community outreach, and development makes him the right choice to lead the Barnes Foundation at this time,” said Joseph Neubauer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the Barnes Foundation, who led the search committee.

The former director of the Barnes Foundation is crossing over to the commercial side of the art world. Derek Gillman, who led the Barnes’s controversial move from its original home in Merion, Pennsylvania to downtown Philadelphia, joined Christie’s on January 5 as chairman and senior vice president of Impressionist and Modern art, the Americas.

Gillman joins the auction house in the midst of a management shake-up. Last month, Christie’s chief executive officer Steven Murphy was replaced by Patricia Barbizet.

From July 20 through October 13, the Parrish Art Museum presents William Glackens—the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s work since 1966. The exhibition spans Glackens’s career from the 1890s through the 1930s, with more than 70 important paintings and works on paper from some of America's finest private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the National Gallery of Art, and the Cleveland Museum, among others. Several works in the exhibition are on view to the public for the first time since 1966.

William Glackens, co-organized and presented by the Parrish Art Museum; Nova Southeastern University Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale (where it was on view earlier this year); and the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (where the exhibition will also travel), spans the full career of the artist, who painted on Long Island from 1911–1915. Curated by writer and art historian Avis Berman, the exhibition focuses on Glackens’s most distinctive and adventurous works.