A close look at Henri Matisse

Dr. Albert C. Barnes (1872-1951) was a medical doctor in Philadelphia who went into business as a chemist. In 1902 Barnes began marketing a drug called Argyrol. He was a shrewd businessman. Within five years he had become a millionaire. A few months before the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929 Barnes presciently cashed out, selling his business.

Barnes had become devoted to collecting art. In 1911 he gave one of his friends, a painter living in Paris, $20,000 to invest in “modern” French paintings. The 20 paintings his friend acquired for him became the original core of what ultimately became one of the great private art collections assembled during the last century.

The 1930s provided this collector with ample opportunities to acquire masterpieces. Here’s a quote attributed to Barnes: “My specialty was robbing the suckers who had invested all their money in flimsy securities and then had to sell their priceless paintings to keep a roof over their heads.”

Eventually his collection contained over 2,500 pieces including 44 Picassos, 178 Renoirs, 69 Cezannes, and 59 Matisses. Barnes developed a personal relationship with the French painter Henri Matisse. The holdings of the Barnes Foundation are now valued at billions of dollars.

A three-volume set of books, “Matisse in the Barnes Foundation,” showcases the Matisse paintings in the collection. Weighing in at 17 pounds, this massive undertaking was edited by Yve-Alain Bois, a professor of art history at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

The first volume reveals how Barnes first discovered the work of Matisse and began acquiring pieces for his collection. He obtained his first painting from the Matisse collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein in Paris in 1912.

Barnes was on the verge of meeting the artist as “in 1929, Matisse went through a crisis, an artistic block.” Matisse then made his first visits to America, where he met the great collector of his work, Barnes, who proceeded to commission Matisse to paint a mural, “The Dance,” for him.

Readers can immerse themselves in the chronology of the Matisse acquisitions as well as a study of the collector’s collecting philosophy and how it changed over time.

Volume two delves into the entire Barnes Matisse catalog, painting by painting. Each one has a story. We immerse ourselves in Matisse’s artistic vision. The third volume takes us into the whole process of executing his mural for Barnes, “The Dance.”