The Barnes Foundation Awarded Five Million Dollar Challenge Grant
From the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
LOWER MERION, PA. The Board of Trustees of the Barnes Foundation has announced the award of a $5 million challenge
grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This extraordinarily generous gift, to be matched by $15 million, will establish
a permanent endowment to support scholarly activities connected with the remarkable Barnes art collection and archives.
Derek Gillman, President and Executive Director of the Barnes, said: "It is with the deepest gratitude that the Board
thanks the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its continuing generous support, including this latest challenge grant. The
endowment will help to establish the institution as an important center for art historical and conservation scholarship.
Now that we are embarking on an entirely new era, moving the core collections to Philadelphia, our plans for the future of
the institution are ambitious. The agenda is large and varied, but nothing to my mind is more important than our
responsibility for the collections, which are at the center of our educational mission. The Mellon grant of $5 million
represents a significant step in reaching that goal and we are committed to raising the $15 million required to qualify
for this gift."
Over the past six years, the Mellon Foundation has very generously provided funding for a thorough assessment of the
collections, enabling the Barnes to develop a professional staff, to establish advanced systems for cataloguing its holdings
which are now fully documented for the first time, and to launch major initiatives in research.
Dr. Bernard Watson, Chair of the Barnes' Board of Trustees, stated: "The far-sighted generosity of the Mellon Foundation
will make it possible to establish a permanent endowment in support of activities in the curatorial, conservation, and
archival realms. With $150 million already secured, we are now engaged in raising an additional $50 million to enable
us to attain long-term stability for our future. We are profoundly grateful, therefore, for this capstone grant which
will secure critical aspects of our future activities."
Among the initiatives that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has funded at the Barnes Foundation are two major research
projects on the Foundation's collections of over 180 works by Renoir, and 59 by Matisse. In studying these highly
significant, but hitherto uncatalogued works, art historians Martha Lucy, Kate Butler, and Claudine Grammont have mined the
rich Barnes archives, as well as archives and other resources in New York, Paris, London and elsewhere. The three scholars
are working under the guidance of Professor Yve-Alain Bois of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study and Professor John
House of the Courtauld Institute in London.
About the Barnes Foundation
The Barnes Foundation was established by Albert C. Barnes in 1922 to "promote the advancement of education and the
appreciation of the fine arts." Currently located in a 12-acre arboretum, the Paul Cret-designed Gallery houses one of
the world's largest collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings, with extensive holdings
by Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Rousseau, Modigliani, Soutine and de Chirico, as well as Old Master paintings,
important examples of African sculpture and Native American ceramics, American furniture and metalwork, and antiquities from
the Mediterranean region and Asia.
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300 North Latch's Lane
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