The Art of the Steal Page #3

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- People didn't like him

'cause he insulted people.

- He didn't have much regard

for Philadelphia society.

- Oh, Dr. Barnes was

extremely inflammatory

towards his contemporaries.

- He liked to fight,

but I don't think

he would pick on anybody small.

It was always...

- Somebody would write,

would say,

"I'm the art critic

of The New York Times.

Can I come in

to see the art? "

And Albert Barnes would write,

"No,"

and he'd have his dog

sign the letter.

But if you said,

"I'm a plumber in New York City

and I want to come see

this art,"

he'd say, "Okay, come in."

(Music continues)

- Barnes never forgot,

no matter how rich he was,

that he'd grown up a poor boy

in turn-of-the-century

Philadelphia,

and this set him at odds

not only with the arts

and culture community

but with

the political community.

He was a New Deal

liberal Democrat.

This particularly put him

at odds

with the family that owned

The Philadelphia Inquirer,

which was clubbable

and muffled and Waspy.

(Music continues)

(man whistling)

The Inquirer was the organ

of Moses Annenberg

and his son,

Walter Annenberg.

Here is a bona fide plutocrat,

a right-wing Nixonian,

as he later would be,

ambassador to the court

of St. James.

It's like gone back

to wearing knee breeches

and these ridiculous costumes.

How more ludicrously right-wing

could you possibly be?

This man who liked

to phone Richard Nixon

in the middle of the night

and share jokes together.

- Barnes and he were always

at odds, always fighting.

The Philadelphia Inquirer was

always attacking Albert Barnes

for not opening it

to the public,

not doing the things

they thought it should do,

but he did the things

he thought he should do.

And it was his art.

Why couldn't he do

what he wanted?

- One of the problems

with Walter Annenberg is,

his father

was a gangster, okay?

He went to jail

for tax evasion,

which is what all gangsters

go to jail for

unless you can really

catch them, you know,

with the knife in their hand.

- In the end, the feds agreed

to give his young

callow son Walter

a pass if the old man

copped out and took

a longer term.

So his father was sent off

to federal prison

and was only released as

he was dying of a brain tumor.

And this is something

that Walter Annenberg

never forgave

the Democrats for.

It was often said

that Albert Barnes realized

this lifetime of animosity

from Walter Annenberg

because he said nasty cracks

about Moe Annenberg

and his income tax problems

and, you know, the racetracks

business and the mob.

But there's no doubt

that Walter Annenberg,

who for many, many years

would dominate the world

of Philadelphia journalism,

hated Albert Barnes

with a passion.

(up-tempo string music)

(Music continues)

Barnes was a very,

very, very shrewd person,

and one of the things

that Albert Barnes learned

was the value of a good lawyer,

and Barnes's lawyer is a man

named John Johnson.

Johnson was a great patron

of the art,

whose art today is one

of the cornerstones

of the

Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Now, this, however,

was not as Johnson

had wished it to be,

I might say.

John Johnson intended his art

to be seen

as a gallery in his home

on Broad Street

in Philadelphia.

- Poor Johnson had said,

"Look, I'm gonna give you

this collection to look at.

"Part of the bargain is,

you know,

keep my end up of it."

- Well, after his death,

the house was demolished

and the paintings were moved

into the Philadelphia Museum

of Art,

where they have been

a cornerstone ever since.

Johnson's art was, in effect,

legally stolen

by the Philadelphia--

the powers that be.

- They argued that the building

was a firetrap

and that the paintings

were a danger

and that they'd be

much better off

in this new building.

"Let's get the paintings

out of there

and bring 'em up

to our new museum."

So, yeah, he got screwed.

- Barnes was so appalled

by this naked thievery

that he became determined

that the political

and arts community

of Philadelphia

would not steal his art.

(dramatic music)

Well, Barnes, as he always did,

he turned to the best lawyers

he could find

to draw up his will.

The goal had always been

to keep the Barnes Foundation

as a freestanding

educational mission,

not to fold the Barnes

into the Philadelphia Museum

of Art,

and certainly not to turn

the Barnes itself

into an art museum.

And it was to be housed

in the building

that Dr. Barnes had put up.

- So he wrote this very sort of

rigorous document.

He said,

"lt shall always be preserved

"as an educational institution.

"lt can be open two or three

days a week to the public,

"but four or five days a week,

"it shall be

solely and exclusively open

"to students and educators

of art.

"The collection

shall never be loaned.

"The collection

shall never be sold.

"The democratic nature

of this institution

shall be preserved

for all time."

- He tried to create

a collection

that was proof against

commercial exploitation.

If it remains

in the same place,

if it simply hangs on a wall,

if it can never be lent,

if it can never be sold,

the commercial exploitation

of it has a value of zero.

- He sought to preserve this

as a school,

so maybe naively,

in perpetuity, right?

But anyone who ever writes

a will or anything like this

thinks it's gonna go on forever.

(dramatic music)

- And so it was--

Barnes was in his roadster,

traveling between

his country place

and his home in Merion,

when he was instantly killed.

(Music continues)

- It was-- it was a shock.

(Music continues)

And I thought,

"l only hope we can keep

the spirit

of Dr. Barnes's ideas alive."

- The question then arises,

as it invariably does,

what did Albert Barnes intend

for the control

of the great

Barnes art collection?

(somber music)

- So then he died in 1951,

and here we have

Violette de Mazia,

one of the great characters

ever, really,

in the art world,

who originally came

to the foundation

to give French classes.

And she becomes

his right-hand person,

his great supporter,

his collaborator,

his disciple,

and she's in charge

basically for 30 years.

- After Dr. Barnes died,

she became president,

and she ran it

the way it had been run before.

- She was just passionate

for teaching.

She poured her life into this.

- Well, hell, it wasn't a job

to Ms. de Mazia and Dr. Barnes

and those of us

who taught there;

it was our life.

We were painters.

We cared about it.

It wasn't just a job.

- Through the Barnes teaching

and Ms. de Mazia teaching,

so many hundreds of people

have said,

"lt has changed my life."

- All I can say is,

the people who took the course

loved it.

And that, to me,

was a satisfactory reason

to perpetuate

the Barnes as it was,

which was a school,

not a museum--

that's very clear

in the trust indenture--

and that the paintings

were hung

for didactic purposes,

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