Now if you are a Barnes Friend e-mail list subscriber, you would have received this e-mail today from :

Another eventful week and The News Continues…

The Barnes Foundation Snubs Montgomery County’s Offer of $50 Million
In a letter dated June 18, 2007, Barnes Board Chairman, Bernard Watson, has refused the offer by Montgomery County of $50 million that would have provided the endowment needed to sustain the Barnes Foundation in its historic home in Merion. For more on this story, see Jim McCaffrey’s article, in The Evening Bulletin

Barnes Rebuffs Montco Offer

By: Jim McCaffrey , The Bulletin

Philadelphia - And they are off to court.

Once again the Barnes Foundation has probably landed itself in court, where it will again have to defend its decisions. This comes thanks to its response yesterday to Montgomery County's offer to create an endowment for the foundation. The county believes it can do this by purchasing the Barnes' properties using money from the sale of low interest, county-backed bonds and leasing the properties back to the foundation.

The offer would create a fund worth "at least" $50 million, according to Montco attorney in this matter Mark Schwartz.

Yesterday, Bernard Watson, chairman of the Barnes Foundation, rejected the Montco offer.

"The Barnes Foundation intends to fulfill its mission 'to promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of fine arts' by moving the gallery collection to the site on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway provided to us by the city of Philadelphia," Watson said in his reply.

"Over the years, the board of trustees has considered all reasonable proposals presented to us. At this juncture, we have now made binding commitments to carry out the move of the gallery collection to Philadelphia and the decision is irreversible."

The bond money would purchase the foundation's property in Lower Merion as well as its Chester County estate known as Ker Feal.

Interest on $50 million would amount to approximately $3.5 million a year. Payments to the county would be only $2.5 million a year, leaving the Barnes a $1 million per year financial cushion.

The deal is contingent on the Barnes Foundation agreeing to keep its $30 billion art collection in its Merion home. The plan has the virtue of using no taxpayer money.

The foundation last year negotiated a deal with the Lenfest Foundation, the Pew Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, the city of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania to move the Barnes art collection to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

So far the state has committed $25 million in matching grant funds to the move.

After watching silently from the sidelines as the foundation struggled to overcome hurdles placed before it by the efforts of Walter Annenberg's lawyers, Montgomery County finally decided last week it should probably make a last-minute jump to try and rescue what are undeniably its crown jewels.

This decision also comes after taking no action when zoning laws imposed by the township handcuffed the Barnes' ability to raise the visibility of its collection, and after county watchdogs did not even so much as a bark when the Philadelphia came in and made the deal to steal away the fabulous art collection.

Schwartz promised he would now take the offer to Montgomery County Orphans' Court where he will ask Judge Stanley Ott to decide if the Foundation is properly fulfilling its fiduciary duty by rejecting the Montgomery County offer.

"One of the interesting things is understanding the mindset," Schwartz explained in a phone conversation yesterday. "The fiduciary is supposed to exhaust all its options. It's not for Bernard Watson to sit on a throne and wait to be presented with options. They could have gone to the county and said 'let's do this financing.'

"They feel like they don't have to do anything. They act like they are above it all. Now the emperor has no clothes. I don't believe Bernard Watson's testimony that the foundation exhausted all its options before reaching out to the Pew Foundation."

He added, "Bernard Watson is not only contemptuous of his responsibility to the trust, he is not only contemptuous of Montgomery County and Judge Ott, he is contemptuous of tax payers."

Jim McCaffrey can be reached at

and Jeremy Rogoff’s article, “Barnes rejects plan to keep it in Merion,” in The Philadelphia Inquirer Barnes rejects plan to keep it in Merion

By Jeremy Rogoff

Inquirer Staff Writer

Barnes Foundation chairman Bernard C. Watson has turned down a funding proposal offered by Montgomery County to keep the historic art collection in its Merion home.

Watson rejected the proposal in a letter Monday.

__________________________________________
On June 15, 2007, The New York Times carried a brief notice about Montgomery County’s Offer to the Barnes Foundation in Arts, Briefly in “New Bid to Prevent Barnes Move”: The Pennsylvania county that is home to the Barnes Foundation, the financially troubled collection of world-class art, has offered to buy the foundation’s property as a way to keep the collection in its current location. Three years ago, after a prolonged legal battle, a judge ruled that the foundation could move the Barnes from the Philadelphia suburb where it has been since the 1920s to the city’s downtown museum quarter as a way to increase its attendance and shore up its finances. The decision will require millions of dollars of public funds and circumvents the charter of the institution’s eccentric founder, Albert C. Barnes, who stipulated that no picture could be lent, sold or even moved on the walls of the neo-Classical galleries that he had built in Merion, Pa. This week, Montgomery County proposed buying the foundation’s buildings and land for $50 million or more, using money that would be raised through bonds. Under the plan, interest from the money could then be used by the Barnes both to pay the bonds’ debt service and to build its endowment, allowing the art to stay put. “This is much closer to the wishes of Dr. Barnes,” said Mark D. Schwartz, a lawyer recently hired by the county to explore way to keep the Barnes from moving. A spokesman for the Barnes said that the foundation had only recently received the proposal and was not yet prepared to comment. Randy Kennedy

Lower Merion Township Proposes Significant Increase in Gallery Attendance

Lower Merion Township Board of Commissioners will consider a “Gallery and Museum Use Ordinance” that will increase the annual allowable visitation to the Barnes Foundation from 62,400 to 140,400. The Board will vote on the ordinance on July 18. To read the ordinance go to the following page on the Township’s website: http://www.lowermerion.org/common/ord_gallery.html . To send e-mail of your comments or encourage your Commissioner to vote in favor of this ordinance, go to http://www.lowermerion.org/ and click on “Commissioners”. You can also see a statement from Joan Hindin former member of the Lower Merion Planning Commission on Channel 7 supporting the ordinance.

Healthy Debate and Commentary Continue…

On Monday, June 18, WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane hosted a lively hour of discussion about the future of the Barnes Foundation with Professor of History and author, Robert Zaller, and Professor of Philosophy and former President of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Gresham Riley. Robert Zaller brought to Marty’s table his profound understanding of the Barnes Foundation as an entity whose value as a cultural and artistic repository makes its destruction unthinkable. Gresham Riley offered his claim that improved access to the Barnes as the educational institution he hopes it will become in Philadelphia makes the move there a worthwhile sacrifice. Listen via the internet and the Radio Times archives: http://www.whyy.org/91FM/radiotimes.html

A Barnes Files piece published in this week’s Main Line Times -- “The Importance of healthy debate on the Barnes move” urges fuller, more accurate reporting on Barnes story. (Article posted at the end of the newsletter)

A Barnes Files piece published in last week’s Main Line Times. The essay, by Barbara Rosin,” was attributed to Nancy Herman in error. The link: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18470096&BRD=1676&PAG=461&dept_id=225412&rfi=6

Well-deserved recognition for Margot Flaks, Volunteer of the Week in The Main Line Times, June 14, 2007

Great Letters to the Editor…

Friends of the Barnes Foundation members and others respond in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Jay Raymond’s letter with a reality THE BARNES LINK

Link:http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070622_Letters_to_the_Editor.html

Judy Zalesne’s letter with good questions for the Barnes, its handlers, and Gov. Rendell.
Link: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070613_Letters___One_Readers_View.html
__________________________________________

Philadelphian, Alfred Gilbert has a better idea for the Youth Study Center in Youth vs. Barnes.

The disposition of the Youth Study Center has been controversial from early in the Rendell mayoral administration - when I was deputy managing director for criminal justice - up to the recent Council action ("City Council committee OKs lease for Barnes museum," June 6).There has been pressure for years, via a class-action lawsuit against the city, to either upgrade or demolish the center. Meanwhile it has become a run-down shadow of its beginnings as a landmark architectural response to juvenile-miscreant behavior. Replacement of the center will cost more than $85 million, while renovation may cost half that. The building's footprint is a tight V, with a parking area in the V at ground level. It is feasible to build housing above the parking area while renovating other elements of the structure for client services and administrative functions. Top it off with a gymnasium, and it may just become more beneficial to the kids who pass through it than giving it to the Barnes, however laudable that may be. Alfred Gilbert,

_________________________________________________

Barnes Files essay, The Importance of Healthy Debate, by Evelyn Yaari

On Monday’s “Radio Times”, WHYY’s Marty Moss Coane hosted a debate about the future of the Barnes Foundation between historian and author, Robert Zaller and philosophy professor and former President of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Gresham Riley. Robert Zaller brought to the table his profound understanding of the Barnes Foundation as an entity whose value as a cultural and artistic repository makes its destruction unthinkable. Gresham Riley offered his claim that improved access to the Barnes as the educational institution he hopes it will become in Philadelphia makes the move there a worthwhile sacrifice. To hear the debate, listeners may access it by a search of the Radio Times website archive at http://www.whyy.org/91FM/radiotimes.html

The two scholars have sparred with one another for some time on this topic on the arts and culture website Broad Street Review and held a public debate at Drexel University on May 21, 2007. (Opening statements from that debate are available on the Friends of the Barnes Foundation website: http://www.barnesfriends.org ) Hard as it is to believe, that event was the very first public debate between those holding opposing views on this very important topic. Drexel University deserves our respect and highest praise.

With WHYY stepping up to the plate to give serious exposure to the Barnes Foundation controversy, there is hope for the public becoming more fully informed. Since the December 2004 ruling by Judge Ott on the Barnes Foundation, reporting in the region’s major media (except for the Main Line Times, Life) has created a distorted picture of the situation that does a disservice to the public. Here are some examples of the mischaracterizations that illustrate the point:

· the framing of Judge Ott’s ruling as a mandate to move, rather than the permission to move that he actually granted;

· descriptions of the three foundations orchestrating the move as “saving” the Barnes Foundation, rather than examining the vested interests and conflicts of interest involved;

· continuous, inaccurate references to “hostile” neighbors of the Barnes Foundation, rather than exploration of the role that entrenched myth played in the legal maneuverings to move the art collection;

· marginalization of the organized opposition to the move, rather than serious examination of the group’s true importance, mission, and alternative ideas for preservation of the Barnes Foundation in Merion;

In addition to these areas of inaccurate reporting, some key stories that were never reported:
· the discovery of a $107 million appropriation in the Pennsylvania Senate capital spending bill which passed in 2002, when the Barnes Foundation administration was publicly claiming to have no intentions of moving and two years before Judge Ott’s ruling;

· the June 2006 community forum convened by Friends of the Barnes Foundation that brought renowned speakers from across the country and brought attendees to their feet;

· the resolution of the Lower Merion Township Board of Commissioners stating the plan to move the Barnes Foundation should be “forever abandoned;”

· The hypocrisy in the stance taken by the champions of redeeming Eakins’ The Gross Clinic while those same entities plan to eviscerate The Barnes Foundation.

Whether these lapses and distortions are by design or indifference is debatable. What is not debatable is that the region’s major media have a good deal of catching up to do if they are to fulfill their obligation to the public of laying open the fullest possible reporting on this story. Now that the issue has been given a strong dose of political cachet and coverage by a much-admired radio personality, perhaps good reporting and more healthy debate will follow.

http://www.barnesfriends.org/