Barnes Foundation

03/18/2023

Who says you can't buy style? These chic ladies certainly prove them wrong 🛍️

At the turn of the nineteenth century, middle and upper-class women experienced a new form of freedom outside the home, without the protection of a male chaperone: shopping!

During the early phase of industrial capitalism, downtown spaces were male-dominated sites for manufacturing, processing, and commerce. But heading towards the twentieth century, the meteoric rise in women consumers contributed to a boom in commercial institutions: the department store.

These “retail palaces,” such as Wannamaker’s (now Macy’s) in , catered to female tastes and aesthetics while abiding by gendered codes of etiquette. For example, employees were typically women, the décor often recalled the plushness of the home parlor, and more prestigious stores featured hair salons and nursery rooms.

This new visibility of women in the public sphere was a theme that appealed to the painter and illustrator, May Wilson Preston (1873 – 1949). She was a member of the National Woman's Party and lent her talents to the women's suffrage movement, designing pro-suffrage postcards, magazines, and books. In 1904, Preston became the first female member of the Society of Illustrators.
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🎨 May Preston. Hunting the Fashions, c. 1910–1912, Charcoal, watercolor and gouache with graphite on paperboard. The Barnes Foundation, BF488.

03/17/2023

🥂 Join us on 4/14 at 7 PM for Young Professionals Night | Levels 📈🔝

It’s time to level up! Step out in your most stylish spring attire and enjoy an evening of art, live music, and dancing at the latest edition of Barnes Young Professionals Night!

This evening is all about celebrating the many ways that Philly’s young professional and creative networks power our city’s vibrant cultural and civic life. You’ve continually raised the bar. Now it’s time to raise a glass in celebration of our collective success—at every level.

We’ll set the scene with art, style, light bites, and sips—all we need is you. Beats for the night are courtesy of DJ Aura and DJ JAMZ. Plus, catch a performance by singer-songwriter Seraiah Nicole.

The first of 2023 also celebrates our newest exhibition, Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember.

In the spirit of giving back and helping others to dress for success, we’re inviting YP guests to bring a new or gently used accessory or piece of clothing to donate to the Wardrobe, whose goal is to eliminate clothing insecurity by outfitting people for life or work.

highlights:

💠 Complimentary champagne toast at 7 PM
💠 Photobooth by Pop-Up Polaroid
💠 Custom fashion illustrations by Denise Fike
💠 Visual art installation by Shanina Dionna
💠 Music by DJ Aura and DJ JAMZ
💠 Live music by Seraiah Nicole at 8 PM
💠 Cash bar featuring beer, wine, cocktails, and light fare
💠 A sweet treat to finish the night

🎟️ Grab a ticket at the link! 🔗 See you there 👋🎟️ http://bit.ly/426d9vP

03/16/2023

💡Did you know?💡 Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is often referred to as the “cradle of civilization” because of the many inventions and cultural innovations that originated there. From the first city of Uruk and its mythical ruler Gilgamesh to the spectacular might of the Assyrian Empire, the lands of modern Iraq and Syria saw the rise and fall of many societies.
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📅 Join us online on Fridays, April 7 – April 28, from 2-4 pm, for The Art of Mesopotamia: A Crossroads of Culture and Myth, to examine the artistic traditions and themes of Mesopotamian societies over the course of 3,000 years, exploring how art was used to express culture, power, religion, and mythology.
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You’ll increase your knowledge of art history amongst like-minded learners from around the world, under the guidance of an expert instructor, all while utilizing innovative, deep-zoom technology that allows you to get up close to art in ways you haven’t before.
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📝Register for this class today 🔗 http://bit.ly/3kqptGh

Scholarships are also available—all are encouraged to apply 🎓
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Babylonian. Panel with striding lion, c. 604-562 BC. Fletcher Fund, 1931. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 31.13.2

03/15/2023

Throughout March, we're celebrating at the Barnes by highlighting some of our favorite, women-artist-focused past special exhibitions. Next up: Suzanne Valadon: Model, Painter, Rebel🖌️💥

Suzanne Valadon (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon, 1865-1938) defied the odds to become an artist. Born to a single mother in Bessines-sur-Gartempe, France, she grew up in poverty in Paris. She spent little time at school, and though she began drawing around the age of nine, she received no formal art education.

In her early teens, after trying a variety of jobs, Valadon became an artist’s model. The experience fueled her ambitions; she began to make drawings and prints in the 1880s, undeterred by an unplanned pregnancy. She entered her work into exhibitions and attracted the attention of patrons and journalists. By 1910, divorced from marriage and soon to enter a second, Valadon was a confident painter.

Describing the body in new ways, she worked with and against tradition, in a style characterized by strong contours and bold coloration. The 1920s brought commercial success, and before she died in the 1930s, her works had entered the French national collection.

Suzanne Valadon: Model, Painter, Rebel🖌️💥 was the first major exhibition dedicated to in North America.

Learn more about the exhibition and grab an exhibition catalogue, rich with information and images of Valadon's incredible work, here 🔗 http://bit.ly/3xXLRdh

03/15/2023

Happy Pi Day! 🥧

Check out these pie plates from Ker-Feal, one of Dr. Barnes's houses, that our our conservation team recently categorized.

Hope you had some pie to celebrate this !

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03/14/2023

“Tell Me What You Remember, a joint exhibition by artists Sue Williamson and Lebohang Kganye [...] is a sensitive meditation on the promise – and limits – of intergenerational dialogue in South Africa.”

“In her choice to connect these artists, curator Emma Lewis surfaces their shared interest in oral histories transmitted over time, provoking deeper questions around how best to tell stories about storytelling itself. Across her tight edit of two impressively diverse oeuvres, we are repeatedly asked to reflect on the form and meaning of individual acts of communication …”

Read more about our newest special exhibition in ArtThrob 🔗 https://bit.ly/3lbofPs

Then, get tickets to experience before it closes on May 21 🔗 http://bit.ly/3Jbi85O 🎟🎟

03/14/2023

to William Glackens, born in 1870 in Philadelphia, PA! 🎂

Imagine if you gave your high school buddy $20K to go to Paris and buy art, and he comes back with a and a bunch of other now-priceless paintings? Mind blowing, right?!

This is essentially what happened between our founder, Dr. Albert Barnes and William Glackens. The two had been classmates at Philadelphia’s Central High - Glackens had gone on to become a successful painter and Barnes had become very wealthy from patenting a cure for infection.

In 1911, Barnes cabled his long-lost friend; he said wanted to start collecting art, but he needed some help. Next thing Glackens knew, he was headed to Paris and tasked with buying the best modern paintings he could find.

Glackens returned with 33 works, including the iconic portrait by Vincent Van Gogh!

Check out all of 's work in our collection here 🔗 http://bit.ly/3ZUoKMy
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🎨: William Glackens. Race Track, 1908–1909, Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, BF138.
📸: Albert C. Barnes (left) and William James Glackens, c. 1920. Unidentified photographer. Photograph Collection, Barnes Foundation Archives, Philadelphia (AR.GFP.10)

03/13/2023

Chaïm Soutine is one of the most enigmatic and unsung artists of the early 20th Century, and until now there has been little technical exploration of his groundbreaking painting process. This—combined with a dearth of biographical information—has led to a complicated mythology about Soutine that is, at best, unclear, and at worst, greatly contradicts itself.
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📅 Join us online on Wednesdays, April 5 – April 26, from 1-3 pm, for Soutine's Technique: A Close Look. We'll zoom in—literally—on the paintings in the Barnes’s collection (spoiler: we have 21 of them 😎), using innovative, deep-zoom technology that allows you to get up close to art in ways you haven’t before. Taught by an expert conservator, this 4-class course will focus on what we have begun to learn from systematic study of Soutine’s paintings so that we might better understand his technique and his lasting influence on art.
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📝Register for this class today: http://bit.ly/3IV0Fzo

Scholarships are also available—all are encouraged to apply 🎓
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Chaïm Soutine. Bouquet of Flowers (detail), c. 1918. BF125. Public Domain.

03/12/2023

Barnes Classes - Zooming in on Art

“The exploring mode zoom function is ridiculous. I can't believe you can zoom in so tight and see so much detail.”

-Nathan D, art teacher in Chicago

We’re excited to introduce our online learning platform, now with deep-zoom technology that brings you up close to art in ways that can’t be experienced in person. Engage in thought-provoking discussions about art with like-minded learners from around the world, under the guidance of an expert instructor, while “explore mode” lets you control your own visual learning experience. You’ll increase the ways you think critically about art while deepening your appreciation for cultures and histories outside your own. It’s a feast for the eyes, and food for the brain 🧠

Enroll in a today. Upcoming topics include:

✔️ Photography and Painting
✔️ Camille Pissarro
✔️ Painting Before the Renaissance
✔️ Soutine’s Technique: A Close Look
✔️ The Art of Mesopotamia: A Crossroads of Culture and Myth
✔️ Pennsylvania Impressionism: Exploring the New Hope Colony
✔️ African Photography: The Art of Writing with Light
✔️ In Defense of Renoir

Scholarships are available—all are encouraged to apply!

Learn more about these classes and enroll today 🔗 https://bit.ly/3mG9ggW

03/12/2023

Grab tickets for Exhibition Tour: Tell Me What You Remember - happening Thursdays, March 9 – Sunday, May 21.

Led by a trained docent, this tour takes an in-depth look at Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: , a special exhibition that explores the work of two acclaimed South African artists, offering a cross-generational dialogue on history, memory, and the power of self-narration. and incorporate oral histories into film, photographs, installations, and textiles to consider how, just as formal statements determine collective histories, the stories our elders tell us shape family narratives and personal identities.

Includes access to the collection before and after the tour.

Plan your visit today 🎟️ https://bit.ly/3SC87CX
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📸 2: Sue Williamson. The Lost District, 2016–ongoing. Installation view, Goodman Gallery, London, 2021. Image courtesy of the artist

03/11/2023

Ever wonder why, when it comes to art—and especially painting—the Italian Renaissance period seems to get so much attention? 🤔 What about the paintings created in the centuries *before* the Renaissance—in ancient Rome and during the Middle Ages?
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Join us online on Tuesdays, April 4 – April 25, from 2-4 pm to learn about what painting was like before Leonardo and Michelangelo. You’ll increase your knowledge of art history amongst like-minded learners from around the world, under the guidance of an expert instructor, all while utilizing innovative, deep-zoom technology that allows you to get up close to art in ways you haven’t before.
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📝Register for this class today: bit.ly/3mehLzC

Scholarships are also available—all are encouraged to apply 🎓
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Attributed to the Isidora Master. Roman Mummy Portrait of a Woman (detail), c. 100. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California

03/10/2023

*NOW ON VIEW* Come see our newest special exhibition, Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember 💭 open through 5/21/23!

Three decades after the dismantling of began, South Africa's so-called "born free" generation has reached adulthood and its artists have used their work to navigate their difficult inheritance. At the same time, the historical distance between their experience and that of an older generation grows. reflects on this moment by bringing together two of South Africa’s most acclaimed contemporary artists.

Learn more about this special exhibition and get tickets today🔗 https://bit.ly/3EyzQOX

03/09/2023

In its day, was considered a radical break with the traditions of art—an attack on the establishment. It was perceived as unfinished and unpolished. Critics found its use of bright color shocking to the eye and were confused by its elevation of the everyday.

During our March Spotlight Tour: The : Rebels of the Art World - happening daily at, 1pm, you’ll learn more about , , , , and other artists who were pivotal to this first movement of modern art and how they changed the very nature of how we think about art today.

Get your tickets today 🔗 https://bit.ly/3XSYXms
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🎨 Edgar Degas. Group of Dancers (detail), c. 1900. BF121. Public Domain.

03/08/2023

Throughout March, we're celebrating at the Barnes by highlighting some of our favorite, women-artist-focused past special exhibitions. Next up: Marie Cuttoli: The Modern Thread from Miró to Man Ray🪡✂️

In 1930s Paris, entrepreneur Marie (French, 1879-1973) convinced the most celebrated modern artists of her time-including , , Léger, and Man Ray to create designs for the historic tapestry workshops of Aubusson, France.

This exhibition presented their paintings and drawings in that context, as "cartoons" or models made to produce woven works of art. Cuttoli's venture gave new life to an artisan tradition and brought modernism to new audiences. From its origins in artist studios and galleries, the style entered homes and offices, becoming part of fashionable life.

Though Cuttoli came from a modest provincial family, she married a wealthy French politician from Algeria, Paul Cuttoli, in 1920, and began to divide her time between Paris and colonial Algeria. She collected modern art and soon launched her own fashion house and interior decoration label, laying the groundwork for her revival of the French tapestry industry. When her tapestry commissions toured the US during World War II, she was supported by Dr. Albert C. Barnes, who recognized her innovative approach to art and business.

Less than three weeks after the opening of : The Modern Thread from Miró to Man Ray, the Barnes was required to close to the public due to COVID-19—related health and safety restrictions mandated by the City of Philadelphia. This closure lasted from March 14, 2020 through July 23, 2020. Fortunately, the Barnes’s expert curatorial and exhibitions staff were able to negotiate extensions of the exhibition’s artwork loans with their lenders, so the presentation remained on view for another month following the closure.

Learn more about Marie Cuttoli: The Modern Thread from Miró to Man Ray🪡✂️ here -> http://bit.ly/3mf6or5

03/07/2023

💡Did you know?💡 Camille Pissarro was the only artist to show work in *all eight* impressionist exhibitions.
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He’s widely appreciated not only for his pioneering brushwork, but also for his personal connections to some of the most important French artists of his time, including Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne.
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📅 Join us online on Mondays, April 3 – April 24, from 6-8 pm, for Camille Pissarro to learn how the artist's scenes of architecture, figures, and nature helped lay the foundation for innovations in French modernist painting. You’ll increase your knowledge of art history amongst like-minded learners from around the world, under the guidance of an expert instructor, all while utilizing innovative, deep-zoom technology that allows you to get up close to art in ways you haven’t before.
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📝Register today: https://bit.ly/3Srh8yn

Scholarships are also available—all are encouraged to apply 🎓
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Camille Pissarro. Garden in Full Sunlight (detail), 1876. BF324. Public Domain.

03/06/2023

Fill up before the Philly at the Barnes in Bloom luncheon on Wednesday, March 8, from 11:30am – 2pm 🌺🍽️

Here’s a peak at our *exclusive* menu for the day!

Celebrate the return of the PHS : Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to the Philly Convention Center with a one-of-a-kind dining experience at the Barnes.

Explore our world-renowned collection while we’re closed to the public, then enjoy a seasonal, locally sourced lunch by Constellation Culinary Group. After lunch, explore floral finds in the Barnes Shop!

Book your reservation today 🔗 https://bit.ly/3IDVkLK

03/06/2023

*Get to know Lebohang Kganye, one of two acclaimed contemporary artists whose works are featured in our newest special exhibition, Tell Me What You Remember*

“I explore loss, memory, fantasy, identity formation, and performance through a matrilineal oral tradition, as an intervention in the erasure of women’s agency in my family.” –

Kganye was born in Katlehong, South Africa, in 1990. Following an early interest in journalism and literature, studies at Johannesburg’s Market Photo Workshop—founded in 1989 and renowned for its commitment to socially engaged photography—changed the course of her career. After completing the advanced diploma, Kganye went on to study fine arts and is currently pursuing her MFA at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, where she lives.

Over the past decade, language and oral tradition have become cornerstones of Kganye’s artistic practice. In 2010, the death of her mother prompted Kganye to travel across South Africa to trace her maternal ancestry. The stories she collected in conversations with her extended family became the source material for her work, an archive that she continues to draw upon today. These stories also revealed how her family history intersects with South Africa’s political and social past.

At the heart of Kganye’s practice is the translation of memory into photography. She is concerned with how oral histories, much like family albums, can only ever be partial accounts—accounts that craft the family mythology and, in turn, shape one’s sense of identity. By reworking family photographs in multimedia works, she gives form to the gaps, differences, and omissions that characterize the remembrance of events—and how those memories are passed down to future generations.

Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember is on view at the Barnes through May 21.

Learn more about and grab tickets here🔗 https://bit.ly/3EyzQOX
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📸 1: Courtesy of . Photo by Audoin Desforges
📸 2: Lebohang Kganye. Setshwantso le ngwanaka II (detail) from Ke Lefa Laka: Her-story, 2013. Image © Lebohang Kganye. Courtesy of the artist

03/06/2023

Get to know Sue Williamson, one of two acclaimed contemporary artists whose works are featured in our newest special exhibition, Tell Me What You Remember.

“I am interested in people, in their stories, and in the exact words they use to describe their memories, experiences, and expectations.”—

Williamson was born in Lichfield, England, in 1941. Her family emigrated to South Africa when she was seven years old. After beginning her career in journalism, she moved to New York in 1964 and worked as a copywriter on Madison Avenue. She also took classes in printmaking and drawing at the Art Students League of New York.

Returning to Cape Town in 1969, where she lives today, Williamson continued her studies in fine art. She would become part of a generation of artists who felt it was their responsibility to use their work in the struggle against apartheid. Her participation in the first meeting of the multiracial Women’s Movement for Peace in 1976 marked the beginning of her activism. It also brought her into contact with many of the people whose stories are told throughout her work.

Since the 1980s, Williamson’s work has spanned printmaking, site-specific sculpture, installation, video, and photography—all in the name of recording histories that would otherwise be overlooked or erased.
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The works in this show trace how voices and the concept of “voice” have echoed through Williamson’s practice over the past 40 years. Photographs capture written protest; installations feature transcribed interviews, sound recordings, and filmed conversations. Deeply collaborative, each documents social change at the level of the individual or family as told in their own words.

Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember is on view at the Barnes through May 21.

Learn more about and grab tickets here🔗 https://bit.ly/3EyzQOX
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📸 1: Courtesy of . Photo by Jo Ractliffe
📸 2: Sue Williamson. Caroline Motsoaledi, Soweto (detail), 2012, from All Our Mothers. Image courtesy of the artist

03/05/2023

Fill up before the Philly at the Barnes in Bloom luncheon on Wednesday, March 8, from11:30am – 2pm 🌺🍽️

Celebrate the return of the PHS : Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to the Philly Convention Center with a one-of-a-kind dining experience at the Barnes.

Explore our world-renowned collection while we’re closed to the public, then enjoy a seasonal, locally sourced lunch by Constellation Culinary Group. After lunch, explore floral finds in the Barnes Shop!

Book your reservation today 🔗 https://bit.ly/3IDVkLK
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🎨 Vincent van Gogh. Still Life (detail), 1888. BF928. Public Domain.