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103 early on. For instance, after receiving his fi rst group of purchases, Barnes observed that the label for one of the works “reads ‘Congo (Bushongos)’ but the type seems to me pure Congo without any of the characteristics of Bushongo work as I have seen it.” Albert Barnes to Paul Guillaume, August 11, 1922, BFA. 20. As Barnes put it, “I strongly advise you to take seriously what I have told you about the great opportunity you have to make a lot of money on Negro art, merely by keeping your best pieces on exposition as your private collection in Paris. If collectors wish to buy those pieces, you should sell them only at a very high price. When the Foundation opens, Negro art will become one of the most important art values of the world.” Albert Barnes to Paul Guillaume, November 9, 1923, BFA. 21. Albert Barnes to Paul Guillaume, June 21, 1929, BFA. Barnes severed his longstanding friendship with Guillaume following the publication of a French edition of the book Primitive Negro Sculpture as La sculpture nègre primitive in 1929. The original English edition was written by Paul Guillaume and Thomas Munro (with Barnes’ guidance). The 1929 translated edition omitted all of the stylistic analyses of works (which Barnes considered to be its major contribution) and replaced all of the illustrations of Barnes Foundation objects with images of objects from Guillaume’s own collection. 22. Barnes, “Plans for the Barnes Foundation,” April 30, 1922, BFA. 23. After visiting an exhibition of modern European paintings and African sculpture (the latter from Guillaume) at Joseph Brummer’s New York gallery, Barnes wrote to Guillaume to express his interest in acquiring some of the works “so that they can go in my new museum.” Albert Barnes to Paul Guillaume, November 9, 1922, BFA. 24. Albert Barnes to Paul Guillaume, November 17, 1922, BFA. 25. Press release dated January 31, 1923, BFA. 26. Santayana’s The Sense of Beauty (1896) and The Life of Reason: Reason in Art (1905) explored moral and aesthetic judgments as phenomena of the mind and products of mental evolution. For an in-depth consideration of the development of Barnes’ theory of art within the context of American philosophy, see an important study, Megan Granda Bahr, “Transferring Values: Albert C. Barnes, Work and the Work of Art” (PhD dissertation, University of Texas, Austin, 1998). 27. See Newman Robert Glass, “Theory and Practice in the Experience of Art: John Dewey and the Barnes Foundation,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 5, no. 3 (autumn 1997), where he observes how closely these ideas hew to Dewey’s in Art as Experience (1934). 28. For a more expansive discussion of the book Primitive Negro Sculpture, especially its context and Barnes’ role in its publication, see Christa Clarke, “Defi ning African Art: Primitive Negro Sculpture and the Aesthetic Philosophy of Albert Barnes,” African Arts 36, no. 1 (spring 2003), pp. 40–51, 92–93. 29. Although the Foundation opened to the public in 1924, its offi cial dedication was the following year. In 1925, the Brooklyn Museum opened its fi rst permanent gallery of African art. See William C. Siegmann, “A Collection Grows in Brooklyn,” in Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Christa Clarke (eds.), Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display (Seattle: University of Washington Press: 2010), p. 68. 30. “The walls of the vestibule in the Gallery are to be of especially made multi-colored tiles of which Negro Art will be the motif. That shows how much I esteem Negro art.” Albert Barnes to Paul Guillaume, March 1, 1923, BFA. 31. Albert Barnes to Paul Guillaume, November 5, 1923, BFA. 32. Richard Wattenmaker suggests that the juxtaposition of Doric columns and African motifs in the vestibule of the Barnes Foundation subverts the traditional role of the museum as a monument to classicism. See Richard J. Wattenmaker and Anne Distel, 1993, op. cit., p. 11. 33. Albert C. Barnes, The Art in Painting (3rd edition, 1925, reprinted New York: Harcourt Brace, 1937), p. 354. 34. For an in-depth explanation of how these enigmatic “wall ensembles” illustrate Barnes’ theories of form and expression, see Bahr, op cit. 35. Albert C. Barnes, 1925, op cit., p. 376. 36. Alain Locke (ed.), The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925, reprinted New York: Touchstone, 1997), p. 267. 36. Barnes refers to this meeting in his follow-up letter to Locke. Albert Barnes to Alain Locke, February 8, 1924, BFA. Jeremy Braddock, Collecting as Modernist Practice (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), pp. 106–155, offers a critical examination of Barnes’ engagement with black culture. 37. Although the Barnes Foundation later became infamous for its prohibition against photography of its collection, a corpus of photographs and lantern slides featuring the collection were produced in the 1930s by American photographers Barbara and Willard Morgan. These images were sold, with Barnes’ consent and encouragement, to numerous schools and art institutions across the country. For a discussion of this little-known aspect of the foundation’s history, see Clarke 1998, op. cit., pp. 137–143. 38. Barnes’ infl uence on Sweeney is stated in William Schack, Art and Argyrol: The Life and Career of Dr. Albert C. Barnes (New York: Thomas Yoseloff/Sagamore Press, 1960), p. 355. Sweeney did ask Barnes to lend African sculpture to the 1935 exhibition, noting, “without representation of your pieces, I would always feel a serious lack, as would everyone who knows Negro art.” James Johnson Sweeney to Albert Barnes, October 23, 1934, BFA. Barnes declined the request. 39. David Brownlee, The Barnes Foundation: Two Buildings, One Mission (New York: Skira/Rizzoli; Philadelphia: Barnes Foundation, 2012), p. 57. One might argue that both the kente and African metalwork motifs, with their fl at, geometric patterns, represent a fundamental departure from Barnes’ vision, which posited that the aesthetic interest in African art lies in its plastic, volumetric qualities. To Barnes, African sculpture ranked among the world’s greatest art traditions because—more than any other sculptural traditions—it was the purest expression of three-dimensional form. FIGS. 26a and b (left and right): Male and female standing couple. Senufo, northern central Senufoland. Côte d’Ivoire. Late 19th–early 20th century. Wood. H: 59.5 and 56.8 cm. The Barnes Foundation, A254.and A228. Photo: Rick Echelmeyer, © 2015 The Barnes Foundation. The Barnes Foundation


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