The main room of the Barnes collection, 1942. Photograph by Angelo Pinto, courtesy of the Pinto family. Photograph Collection, Barnes Foundation Archives
About the Exhibition
In 1933, Dr. Albert C. Barnes purchased The Large Bathers, the crown jewel in his collection of more than five dozen works by French painter Paul Cézanne. However, just four years later, a public feud erupted when a fellow Philadelphia art institution acquired its own version of the Bathers. Insults were hurled in the press, and the quality of each work was called into question. Drawing on archival letters, clippings, and photographs, this exhibition traces Dr. Barnes’s purchase of his Large Bathers, explores the clash with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and exposes the simmering tensions that set the stage for the Battle of the Bathers.
On view on the lower level and online.