Controversy
The Trusts have supported the relocation of the famed Barnes Art Collection from its longtime home in Lower Merion, PA, to Center City. This has been controversial in the art world. “The Barnes Foundation was established by Albert C. Barnes in 1922 to ‘promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts.’...the Foundation is home to one of the world's largest collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings, with extensive holdings by Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, Renoir and Modigliani, as well as important examples of African sculpture.”
Opponents of relocating the collection to a new museum along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway said that move violates Barnes’ will that the collection stay intact at its original location and not be loaned, transferred or sold. Columnist Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote in 2010, "It is perfectly clear exactly what Barnes specified in his will. It was drawn up by the best legal minds. It is clear that what happened to his collection was against his wishes." Yet the Barnes Foundation prevailed in a series of legal actions and the new museum opened on May 16, 2012. At the opening Barnes trustee and treasurer Stephen Harmelin noted, "There were financial challenges to be faced...questions about how the foundation as it existed could go on with its mission, worries about the safety and integrity of the collection in the long run,” he said. “We were convinced that the only change that could save the Barnes was to redouble our commitment to its mission, to reach out more widely than ever before, to build, to expand and to move the collection to a more accessible location."
The Trusts became involved with the Barnes Collection when the foundation overseeing the art collection had serious financial trouble, ultimately contributing more than $20 million for a new museum. The New York Times' Roberta Smith said of the new building, "Against all odds, the museum that opens to the public on Saturday is still very much the old Barnes, only better."
The controversy involving Pew, other donors, the Barnes trustees and the collection was the subject of the documentary film, The Art of the Steal. The Trusts did not participate in the film because it believed it would be “severely biased.” No reference for this statement. The Washington Post said when the film was released that it “is hostile and has an agenda.”
Read more about this topic: The Pew Charitable Trusts
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