Barnes

This weekend, we got up early and Jady took us to the Barnes Foundation.

I cannot believe it took me 5 (6?) years of living in Philadelphia to get there. If you haven't been: shame on you. If you want to go, you better get on it. Reservations seem to be hard to come by?
$25b of art, in one guy's collection.
Hundreds of Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse.

So much you can barely handle them.
Personal favorites? Jungle Rousseaus I hadn't heard of and the Modigliani portraits.


If you don't know about this place, it's a house/gallery type setting, with objects arranged by how they relate to each other, and was extremely far removed from a Museum Experience. There's no placards, no titles.

Even aside from the whole art end of things, Barnes was also pretty awesome historically. He made his money by inventing a drug, and then chased around the world befriending artists, collecting work (and dogs), and generally was good at being rich.
In his will, he stipulated that the collection wasn't ever to be moved, specifically to Philadelphia, but that's exactly what's happening next year. And I can't wait to see the movie about it - The Art of the Steal.