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recovered from the thrill.”(24) In 1926, the Barnes Foundation began hosting an annual concert of African
American spirituals sung by the Bordentown Choir of New Jersey’s Manual Training and Industrial
School for Youth.
Charles S. Johnson first introduced Barnes to the Bordentown Choir and their beloved and respected
musical director, Frederick J. Work (1880 – 1942), while arranging a speaking engagement for Barnes
at the Women’s Faculty Club of Columbia University. The talk included lantern slides of African art
accompanied by the singing of spirituals. Later that evening, Barnes and his wife, Laura, and Paul
Guillaume joined Johnson for dinner and an evening of cabaret jazz music in Harlem. Barnes enjoyed
the “Harlem spree,”(25) but found the spirituals sung by Work’s choir far more captivating. He included
Laurence Buermeyer’s essay, “Negro Spirituals and American Art,” as one of five contracted articles for a
special issue of Opportunity devoted to art, along with his own essay, “Negro Art, Past and Present.”
THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
In the years following the opening of the Foundation, Barnes experienced both the sweetness of success
as well as the sting of disappointment. In April of 1926, the Republic of France awarded him the cross
of the Legion of Honor; however, that year also marked an end to a brief collaboration between the
Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania. Mostly due to a declining student enrollment, Barnes
suspended both Thomas Munro’s course, “Fine Arts V: Modern Art” as well as Laurence Buermeyer’s
lectures on the “Aesthetic Experience.” The University’s inability to accept his advice on the structure of
the classes also drove Barnes’s decision to continue the Foundation’s educational program on his own. He
replaced Munro with two Foundation employees, Jeanette Portenar, teaching psychology and aesthetics,
and Violette de Mazia (1899 – 1988), conducting demonstrations in the Gallery. De Mazia, hired initially
as a French teacher, soon became an invaluable member of the Foundation staff, assisting Barnes with the
research and writing of four books, and eventually serving as the Foundation’s director of education and
member of the board of trustees.
As the wire services spread the news of the Foundation’s opening, an overwhelming amount of mail
arrived from across the nation. In 1925 alone, over one thousand correspondents wrote congratulatory
messages or expressed interest in coming to Merion to take classes. Barnes had once declared to his
friend John Dewey, “…I’m launched on a bigger ship than I thought I’d ever be called on to steer and
I’m going through with it somehow.”(26) Although frustrated by his association with the University of
Pennsylvania, Barnes reveled in the success of his “experiment in education” and also in the sales of his
book, The Art in Painting (1925).
REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT
As early as 1912, Barnes had begun developing the property along North Latch’s Lane. He contracted
Philadelphia architects Druckenmiller, Stackhouse & Williams to design an estate home on a portion of
the property belonging to the Marston family across the street from “Lauraston” on Latch’s Lane. By
1913, Barnes had also purchased property from the Latch family to build four more homes on Latch’s
Lane bordering the northeast corner of Old Lancaster Avenue. Upon taking possession of the Wilson
property in 1922, Barnes contracted John H. McClatchy, a local well-known builder of English stone
and Tudor style houses, to build two additional homes on Latch’s Lane as well as four houses along
Lapsley Lane, one of which became the home of Joseph Lapsley Wilson in his new role as director of
the Barnes Foundation Arboretum. By developing the area around the Foundation, Barnes had hoped
to create a “park occupied by high-class suburban residences.”(27) The approval, in 1927, of plans to
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construct one hundred and twenty-six twin style dwellings bordering his property led Barnes to contest
the new township zoning allowing such a venture. The dispute, which began with a threat to move his
art collection to New York City, culminated in the construction of a stone wall ten feet high and running
several hundred feet across the back of the Barnes Foundation property.
In 1929, Barnes decided to sell the A.C. Barnes Company to devote his full attention to the needs of
the Barnes Foundation. On July 19, 1929, Zonite Corporation of New York bought the A.C. Barnes
Company, maintaining its trademarked names for Argyrol and Ovoferrin. Barnes fortunately made the
decision to sell his company just months before the New York stock market crashed in October of that
year.
FOUNDATION PUBLICATIONS
With A.C. Barnes Company sold, Barnes could dedicate more of his time to writing a series of books in
which he stressed the fundamental importance of a systematic study of art, even canceling his Sunday
lectures at the Foundation to write about the art of Henri Matisse. Barnes spent summers in Europe
conducting research in museums and galleries and taking notes for the books, The French Primitives
and Their Forms (1931),
The Art of Henri-Matisse (1933),
The Art of Renoir (1935), and
The Art of
Cézanne (1939). Mrs. Barnes accompanied him and his writing team: Violette de Mazia, his co-author,
and staff members Nelle Mullen, Mary Mullen, and Laura Geiger. On location at hotel spas such as the
Hotel des Thermes, situated in the village of Brides-les-Bains in the foothills of the French Alps, and
during the return voyage home, the team compiled, transcribed, and edited their notes, underscoring the
collaborative nature of their work on the Foundation’s books.(28)
DECORATIVE ART AND FINE CRAFTS
Dr. Barnes usually traveled twice a year to Europe, visiting galleries and dealers to expand and refine his
collection of fine art, but a journey to the American West launched a new interest in collecting fine crafts.
Mrs. Barnes, at the suggestion of her doctor, traveled to New Mexico for a few months in the winter of
1929 – 1930. Barnes accompanied his wife and, while she rested, he bought Zuni, Navajo, and Apache
turquoise and silver jewelry, pawn jewelry, rugs, santos, Zia, Old Domingo, Santa Anna, Acoma, and
San Ildefonso pottery, and Navajo blankets from dealers with such colorful names as La Fonda Indian
Shop, Old Santa Fe Trading Post, and Spanish and Indian Trading Company. Barnes found the “eternal
sunshine” of the Southwest delightful but seemed to be even more intrigued by the ceremonial dances
performed by the indigenous people there. In a letter to artist Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954), he described it
as a unique experience and added, “I was sorry you were not with me to see the marvelous spectacle.”(29)
That same year, Matisse also traveled to the American West and, upon his return, asked to visit the
Barnes Foundation.(30) Barnes, who first purchased Matisse’s work from Gertrude Stein in 1912,
believed Matisse to be the most well informed of all the artists he ever knew and, in Matisse’s work,
always found “something that is his own, is not a repetition, and is in line with the traditions.”(31) Their
visit culminated in a commission for Matisse to paint a mural to decorate the lunettes above the French
windows in the Barnes Foundation Gallery. Matisse, who had never had the opportunity to work on
such a large scale before, returned to Nice, France, rented a garage as studio space to accommodate
a substantial painting, installed a skylight to mimic the lighting at the Foundation, and created The
Dance (2001.25.50). The Barnes Foundation commission revitalized Matisse, inspiring his future artistic
production both in terms of scale and materials.