Head Strong: Even Barnes' future success won't make the move right

My wife and I recently concluded what we fear was our final visit to see Dr. Albert Barnes' art collection as he intended for it to be displayed on Latches Lane in Merion. At a private viewing, we were offered a summary of the status of the move into Center City and invited to be financially supportive of the relocation.

When the briefing ended, we walked through the galleries and admired the stunning array of works.

Even to an untrained eye it seems obvious that the Barnes Foundation's website is right to proclaim that it is home to "one of the finest collections of French Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and early Modern paintings in the world." The vast array of works by Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, and Renoir represents only a small sampling of the artists and styles collected by Barnes. If you've never seen the stunning assemblage through his eye, you'd better hurry: The Merion location closes July 3 in anticipation of the move in the spring of 2012.

Construction is now well under way on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, seven years after Judge Stanley R. Ott of Montgomery County Orphans Court ruled that the collection could move to Philadelphia because of the deplorable state of foundation finances. Opponents of the move refuse to surrender. They were buoyed in 2009 by the release of the documentary called The Art of the Steal, or, as a Barnes docent referred to it, "the bane of our existence."

In what might be a last-ditch effort to thwart the move, Friends of the Barnes are back in court arguing that the movie revealed damaging information about the handling of the case by then-Attorney General Mike Fisher.

Driving home after our tour, we agreed on two things:

First, the relocation of the Barnes will be the single greatest cultural enhancement to Philadelphia during our lifetimes. Such is our confidence in the Barnes' future success that we have a family wager as to whether it will outdraw the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (I took the "over.")

For decades, there has been talk of making Philadelphia a destination city, and it's succeeding in some areas. Citizens Bank Park will be sold out for every Phillies' home game this year. The Convention Center expansion will enable the corralling of events such as the National Safety Council's annual seven-day convention. However, it is the Barnes that will attract a new breed of Philadelphia visitor, including some locals who haven't seen these great works. We were impressed to hear that affording the city's public-school children regular visitation is a goal of the new home.

But our second accord was that success facilitated by moving across City Avenue won't make the move right. "This is fundamentally wrong," I'd earlier whispered while admiring the panels of Henri Matisse's The Dance II. We each drove home with a pit in our stomachs.

We live in a political climate in which the word socialism has been tossed around with such frequency that it has lost its true meaning. Because if there were a legitimate instance where private-property rights had been extinguished in the name of vesting ownership and control of assets to the community as a whole, the Barnes case would be it.

Barnes was a brilliant man who earned his wealth legitimately and chose to use the fruits of his labor to acquire arguably the finest private art collection in the world. Having his lawful possessions and clearly articulated wishes discarded by the modern incarnation of those with whom he quarreled while alive is an affront to us all.

If Barnes' indenture was destructive to that which he assembled, I'd feel differently. But nothing he ever did posed injurious risk to his treasures. To the contrary.

Barnes sought to create a teaching establishment, a form of cultural life that he deliberately set outside the city and beyond the reaches of what he perceived to be the snobbish, WASPy, Quaker, art-culture establishment then embodied by the Art Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and even his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. That's why he endowed Lincoln University. It was his way of communicating that the art world did not begin and end on the Parkway. So, not only is the move at odds with his vision, but also the venue.

Speaking for my wife and me, I suspect the firmness of our personal views is tied to our station in life. We both work long hours. Our endeavors enable us to live well, but our highest priority is providing the finest education available to our four children. We look forward to the day when we have fulfilled those obligations and can endeavor to provide them with some semblance of economic foundation to begin their adult lives, hoping that they will one day do likewise. After all, isn't that the perpetuation of the American dream?

The Barnes relocation is an affront to that ideal. While the enormous value of the collection can easily overshadow the issues at stake, in the end, this is no different than taking from a hardworking family that achieved financial success. The fact that the property at issue is art and not jewelry or an automobile or a vacation home makes it no more defensible.

In a last gasp, the neighbors on Latches Lane now proudly display signs saying "The Barnes belongs in Merion." They will always be right, even when the Barnes is a turnstile success downtown.