Albert C. Barnes - Later Life, Death, and Legacy

Later Life, Death, and Legacy

Barnes and his wife Laura purchased an 18th-century estate in West Pikeland Township, Pennsylvania, and named it "Ker-Feal" (Breton for “House of Fidèle”) after their favorite dog. Barnes had brought the dog home from Brittany during an art-buying trip to France.

Barnes died on July 24, 1951, in an automobile crash. Driving from Ker-Feal to Merion, he failed to stop at a stop sign and was hit broadside by a truck near Phoenixville. He was killed instantly.

Having watched the Philadelphia Museum of Art take control of the collection of his late lawyer, John Johnson, Barnes tried to prevent the same from happening to his collection. The Foundation's Indenture of Trust and other documents provide that the Barnes Foundation was to remain an educational institution, open to the public only two to three days a week. His art collection could never be loaned or sold; it was to stay on the walls of the foundation in exactly the places the works were at the time of his death.