Research Catalog

The maverick's museum : Albert Barnes and his American dream

Title
The maverick's museum : Albert Barnes and his American dream / Blake Gopnik.
Author
Gopnik, Blake
Publication
  • New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2025]
  • ©2025
Supplementary Content
Full endnotes

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Book/textUse in library JQE 25-1020Schwarzman Building - Art & Architecture Room 300

Details

Subject
  • Barnes, Albert C. (Albert Coombs), 1872-1951
  • Art > Collectors and collecting > United States > Biography
  • Art, Modern > Collectors and collecting > United States > Biography
  • Philanthropists > United States > Biography
  • Barnes Foundation
  • Art > Private collections > Pennsylvania > Merion
Genre/Form
  • Biographies.
  • Informational works.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Prologue -- Civil War, Childhood, Methodism -- The neck, Central High -- Medical School, Germany, Mulford -- Wedding, Argyrol, Marketing -- Bribes, Lawsuit, The Main Line -- Collecting, Glackens, Paris -- A buying spree -- Collecting mania -- Armory show, John Quinn, Vituperations -- Cultural ascent, American moderns, Judging art -- Dewey -- Democracy and education -- Factory life, Worker education -- Buermeyer, Practical psychology, A murder case -- War, A Polish study -- Wealth, Renoir and Cezanne -- Buying American, Art in the factory -- Philadelphia philistines, Birth of the foundation -- Planning a foundation, Young art in Paris -- Paul Guillaume -- De Chirico, Modigliani, Soutine, A first exhibition -- African art, Black culture -- Black rights, Black education -- New buildings, The collection -- The foundation opens, Education and the art in painting -- Democratic aesthetics, Form and meaning -- Universities, Thomas Munro, Europe, Cezanne and Seurat, Art education -- Failed alliances, 'The girls' and De Mazia, Demonstrations -- Ejecting elites, Fine Scotch -- The negro center, Foundation fellowships, Henry Hart -- Deaths, Zonite, Returning an O'Keeffe -- The dance, A double cross?, A Matisse book -- Great Depression, Art as experience, Renior -- Vollard, Cezanne's Bathers -- Crafts, Horace Pippin -- Ker-Feal, The Arboretum, Bertrand Russell -- The Saturday Evening Post, Firing Russell -- Failures, War -- Penn Redux, Haverford, Penn again, Sarah Lawrence, Lincoln University -- The end -- Epilogue -- A note on sources -- Acknowledgments -- Illustration credits -- Index.
Call Number
JQE 25-1020
ISBN
  • 9780063284036
  • 0063284030
OCLC
1440216435
Author
Gopnik, Blake, author.
Title
The maverick's museum : Albert Barnes and his American dream / Blake Gopnik.
Publisher
New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2025]
Copyright Date
©2025
Edition
First edition.
Description
403 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 24 cm
Type of Content
text
cartographic image
still image
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary
From prominent critic and biographer Blake Gopnik comes a compelling new portrait of America's first great collector of modern art, Albert Coombs Barnes. Raised in a Philadelphia slum shortly after the Civil War, Barnes rose to earn a medical degree and then made a fortune from a pioneering antiseptic treatment for newborns. Never losing sight of the working-class neighbors of his youth, Barnes became a ruthless advocate for their rights and needs. His vast art collection -- 181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, 59 Matisses, 46 Picassos -- was dedicated to enriching their cultural lives. A miner was more likely to get access than a mine owner. Gopnik's meticulous research reveals Barnes as a fierce advocate for the egalitarian ideals of his era's progressive movement. But while his friends in the movement worked to reshape American society, Barnes wanted to transform the nation's aesthetic life, taking art out of the hands of the elite and making it available to the average American. The Maverick's Museum offers a vivid picture of one of America's great eccentrics. The sheer ferocity of Barnes's democratic ambitions left him with more enemies than allies among people of all classes, but for a circle of intimates, he was a model of intelligence, generosity, and loyalty. In this compelling portrait, Gopnik reveals a life shaped by contradictions, one that left a lasting impact. -- Provided by publisher.
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Full endnotes
Research Call Number
JQE 25-1020
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