Albert Barnes, the Barnes Foundation and African Art 90 “When the Foundation opens, Negro art will have a place among the great art manifestations of all times,” declared a confi dent Dr. Albert C. Barnes in a 1923 letter to his Paris-based art dealer, Paul Guillaume. 1 Barnes (1872–1951) was an American pharmaceutical entrepreneur who rose from humble beginnings to amass a fortune, with which he developed one of the world’s earliest and fi nest collections of modern art. In the early 1920s, he expanded his scope to include African sculpture. Barnes was intent on developing a comprehensive African art collection for the educational institution that he founded in 1922, which offi cially opened in 1925 as the Barnes Foundation. In those few years between that institution’s inception and realization, Barnes acquired more than a hundred masks, fi gural sculptures, and utilitarian objects from western and central Africa, almost exclusively through Guillaume (fi g. 5). The resulting collection was housed in the foundation’s building in Merion, Pennsylvania, and its presence there was heralded by the African-inspired motifs that architect Paul Cret incorporated into the building’s design, at Barnes’ request. By Christa Clarke The Barnes Foundation holds an important place in the history of the Western reception of African art. It was one of the fi rst permanent installations in the United States to display objects from Africa as fi ne art, doing so in an era when such works were typically presented as cultural artifacts in ethnographic museums. A pioneer in acquiring modern art, Barnes was also among the earliest American collectors to purchase African sculpture in depth, helping to shape a durable canon. The works he collected, primarily deriving from Francophone colonies, were infl uential in an era when Western taste in African art was only just being formed. African sculpture was presented in the foundation’s galleries along with other works from the collection—modernist painting, European religious art of the early Renaissance, pewter and ceramic vessels, and ornamental and functional metalwork—in carefully arranged compositions that Barnes referred to as “ensembles.” These groupings refl ected and reinforced a method of aesthetic analysis that Barnes developed and put into practice at the foundation. Barnes used the African sculpture collection to advance his educational philosophy and championed its merits in gallery lectures, public addresses, and published writings. Beyond simply fostering artistic appreciation of African art, Barnes had a socially progressive purpose behind his advocacy. He believed that the study of African art as an important form of black cultural expression could serve as a tool for racial advancement and equality. Toward that end, Barnes supported young African American artists, musicians, and writers at the foundation through a scholarship program available to students in need. He was also actively involved in the “New Negro” movement (better known today as the Harlem Renaissance) in the 1920s, collaborating with such pioneers of social justice as philosopher and educator Alain Locke and the National Urban League’s Charles Spurgeon Johnson to promote awareness of the artistic and social value of African art. Barnes was com- FIG. 1 (left): Albert C. Barnes with a Baule door for an inner room, c. 1946. Photograph by Angelo Pinto. Photograph Collection, Barnes Foundation Archives. Photo © Barnes Foundation Archives. FIG. 2 (below left): Standing male fi gure, 16th century. Edo, Benin Kingdom, Benin City, Nigeria. Bronze. H: 56.5 cm. The Barnes Foundation, A230. Photo: Rick Echelmeyer, © 2015 The Barnes Foundation. FEATURE
•TribalPaginaIntera.indd
To see the actual publication please follow the link above