Jonathan Shazar | With regret, a museum moves

Standing on Latches Lane in tony Lower Merion, shaded by the trees that have long guarded the gated estates along the quiet street, it is hard to believe that the busyness and bustle of Philadelphia lies just one block away, a few hundred feet from one of Paul Phillippe Cret's little masterpieces -- a neoclassical jewel that sits unasummingly amidst the wealth of the Main Line.

Of course, the contents of that small building -- almost 200 Renoirs and several dozen Cézannes and Matisses each, as well as important masterpieces by Manet and Seurat, among many others -- dwarf the collective riches found in all of Lower Merion, and likely all of Montgomery County. Some estimates value the collection at as high as $25 billion.

There's something very special about the Barnes Foundation and its idyllic little campus among the mansions on the city's outskirts. It truly is an art collection like no other -- in its scope, its depth and its mission. Few if any collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art rival the Barnes', its walls covered floor to ceiling with priceless masterpieces.

Constrained by the will of its benefactor and the hostility of its neighbors to crowds, the Barnes is an oasis -- its galleries never crowded, its setting a wonderful change of pace from craziness of big city museums like New York's Metropolitan and Philadelphia's Art Museum.

So if the Foundation's leadership convinces the courts to allow it to move to newer, more prominent quarters in Philadelphia, alongside the Art Museum and Rodin Museum on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, part of me will mourn the loss of a very special and intimate space to enjoy fine art.

That's until another part of me remembers just how often forgotten this treasure is. The Barnes is a truly world-class collection, deserving of a place in the pantheon of the great museums. Yet how many Penn students so much as know it exists? How many Philadelphians are completely oblivious to the 40-odd Picassos, dozen or so Van Goghs and handful of Old Masters that sit just off of City Line Avenue?

And the very things that have put the Barnes into its current dire financial situation -- the reason it cites for the proposed move -- are the things that keep this amazing collection from most of the public's view: the absurd will of founder Albert Barnes and the desire of the residents of Latches Lane to keep people off of their street.

Albert Barnes, an 1892 graduate of Penn's School of Medicine, was an eccentric -- and vindictive -- little man. Born to a working class family, he made his fortune in the antiseptic business before focusing the majority of his attention on art -- both studying it and buying it.

He assembled his collection through the purchase of the then-contemporary art that he supported, artists that are now icons. He developed a theory of art championed by his close friend, the philosopher John Dewey. And he created the Barnes Foundation as a school -- for which his fantastic store would be a teaching tool -- that flew in the face of the artistic conventions he so despised.

He was so adamant about the importance of his work that he stipulated that none of the collection was to be moved in any way after his death. He so hated the intellectual and artistic elite of the day that he refused admission to those outside of the working class and banned faculty members and trustees of the region's finest schools -- including those of his alma mater -- from serving on the Barnes' board. He even went so far as to forbid his foundation from increasing the collection's size. And though some of these ridiculous conditions have been eroded over the years by the courts, the restrictions are still unbelievably burdensome.

What's more, unlike other small galleries -- the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., comes to mind -- the Barnes is strictly limited by court order to a meager number of visitors -- 1,200 each week, each of whom may only be charged a $5 admission fee. Thus, not only is the Barnes set up for financial failure, it cannot possibly accomodate everyone who wishes to enter its hallowed halls.

And it is for this reason -- the unnecessary and detrimental exclusivity in which the Barnes currently exists -- that the move to Philadelphia is the right way to go. Ignoring all of the money problems, the unreasonable will that established the Foundation, the much-needed boost to the city's cultural tourism and the greater attention certain to be paid to the Parkway's fabulous museums, it is a question of access and openness.

Sad as I'll be to see the Barnes leave Latches Lane and Lower Merion behind, it is a sacrifice well worth the cost. It is a museum simply too good to keep hidden.

Jonathan Shazar is a senior History and Political Science major from Valley Stream, N.Y., and editorial page editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

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