How did one of the worlds finest art collections become so mired in debt and controversy?
Albert Barnes was born in the Philadelphia slums in the late 19th century. As a physician and entrepreneur, he later parlayed a single drug–a gonorrhea medication–into a personal fortune. Like his cash cow, he was known as a pill in high-society circles, mainly for his outspoken liberal views. But Barnes paid no mind to his elite neighbors and instead devoted his life to his extraordinary art collection and to sharing it with the poor. He established a gallery, set aside a tidy sum for its tending, and then, in 1951, he died. That was the biggest mistake Barnes ever made. The Barnes Foundation, charged with overseeing his collection of Renoirs, Cezannes, Picassos, and Matisses, is now penniless after a string of bad investments and legal battles. Some of the collection’s current trustees are attempting to invalidate its namesake’s wishes so the $6.5 billion collection can be removed from his tony suburban estate and set up as a tourist attraction in downtown Philadelphia. The saga is
