Vice President Art and Education and Gund Family Chief Curator

Vice President for Art and Education and Gund Family Chief Curator

The Barnes Foundation

Philadelphia, PA

The Barnes is a nonprofit cultural and educational institution that shares its unparalleled art collection with the public, organizes special exhibitions, educates diverse populations of children and adults, and fosters new ways of thinking about human creativity. The Barnes’s permanent collection is displayed in ensembles that integrate art and objects from across cultures and time periods, overturning traditional hierarchies and revealing universal elements of human expression.

Home to one of the world’s finest collections of impressionist, post‑impressionist, and modern paintings—including the largest groups of paintings by Pierre‑Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne in existence—the Barnes brings together renowned canvases by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, and Vincent van Gogh, alongside African, Asian, ancient, medieval, and Native American art as well as metalwork, furniture, and decorative art.

The Barnes was established by Dr. Albert

C. Barnes in 1922 in dialogue with progressive educational theorist John Dewey to “promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts and horticulture.” A visionary collector and pioneering educator, Dr. Barnes was also a fierce advocate for the civil rights of African Americans, women, and the economically marginalized. Committed to racial equality and social justice, he established a scholarship program to support young Black artists, writers, and musicians who wanted to advance their education.

Dr. Barnes became actively involved in the Harlem Renaissance, during which he collaborated with philosopher Alain Locke and Charles S. Johnson, the scholar and activist, to promote awareness of the artistic value of African art and material culture.

Since moving to Philadelphia in 2012, the Barnes has expanded its commitment to diversity, inclusion, and social justice, teaching visual literacy in groundbreaking ways; investing in original scholarship relating to its collection; and enhancing accessibility through every facet of its programs onsite, online and in the regional communities it serves. The Barnes has built an internationally renowned special exhibition and publication program that draws from and expands upon the rich resource of the permanent collection and reflects the institution’s educational mission in a variety of ways.

Some exhibitions engage with the art and artists represented in the Barnes collection, while others, to place those works in context, feature artists overlooked during Dr. Barnes’s time. Many honor Dr. Barnes’s commitment to racial equality and social justice, celebrating artists who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, and women.

Long restricted by the terms of Dr. Barnes’s initial gift of the collection, the Barnes has very recently been granted permission to lend paintings from its collection galleries on a limited basis to temporary exhibitions that advance the institution’s educational mission. The considered inclusion of paintings from such a renowned yet previously constrained collection – while carefully preserving the visitor experience – will significantly extend the reach and impact of the Barnes’s exhibition and educational programs and scholarship.

The Barnes has also recently entered into fiscal, administrative and programmatic partnerships with two important Philadelphia institutions: the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage and the new Calder Gardens.

Both of these partnerships will enable the Foundation to grow its artistic, educational and social service in the region and beyond.

The Barnes is nearing the conclusion of its Second Century Campaign to raise $100 million in endowment and multi‑year operating support to increase and enhance the myriad services the Barnes provides to the people of Philadelphia and visitors from around the world. It will sustain the founding commitments to accessible education through the visual arts; to diversity, inclusion, and social justice;

and to the conservation and stewardship of the unparalleled collection.