Opponents try to block Barnes move

NORRISTOWN, Pa. -- Opponents of a plan to relocate the Barnes Foundation’s multibillion-dollar art collection to downtown Philadelphia have asked the judge who approved the move to allow new hearings on the contentious issue.

The opponents have been trying to persuade Montgomery County Orphans’ Court Judge Stanley Ott, who has jurisdiction over Dr. Albert Barnes’ trust, to reconsider his 2004 decision.

Lawyers representing the county and a citizens group called Friends of the Barnes asked Ott on Monday to allow them to present new arguments for keeping the foundation at its current location in suburban Lower Merion Township. They said new proposals would provide the Barnes with funding it needs to stay put.

The foundation cited poverty when it asked Ott for permission to leave the suburbs and move closer to Philadelphia’s most popular tourist attractions. Ott’s permission was needed because Barnes’ will had instructed that his paintings “remain in exactly the places they are” after his death.

The Barnes’ collection includes an astounding trove of French impressionist and postimpressionist masterpieces and thousands of other objects. But the foundation says it would go bankrupt if it had to keep its 181 Renoirs, 69 Cezannes, 60 Matisses and 44 Picassos in its out-of-the-way home, which was subject to restrictive township rules that limited the number of visitors.

On Monday, opponents of the move told Ott that a new township ordinance would allow more visitors and that a county-backed purchase-lease back arrangement would give the Barnes a massive infusion of cash. They also said the Barnes building is eligible for National Historic Landmark status, opening up a possible source of federal funding.

Attorneys for the foundation and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office, however, told Ott that the county’s financial proposal is far from guaranteed. They also said, essentially, that the opponents’ ideas are too little, too late.

Barnes, a pharmaceutical magnate who died in a 1951 car crash, established the foundation in 1922 to teach populist methods of appreciating and evaluating art.

His collection has been housed since 1925 in a 23-room limestone gallery by renowned French architect Paul Philippe Cret that features a Henri Matisse mural inside and Jacques Lipchitz reliefs on the exterior.

Inside, Barnes placed his paintings close together and grouped them with objects such as metal hinges and wrought ironwork as a teaching tool to illustrate common aesthetic themes.

Since getting the go-ahead to move, the Barnes has raised $150 million, including a $25-million grant from the state and millions more from three charitable foundations, to build a new home on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and establish an operating endowment. Construction, however, has yet to begin.