Reconsider Barnes move, judge is asked

Opponents of a plan to move the Barnes Foundation's multibillion-dollar art collection from Merion to Philadelphia petitioned a judge yesterday to reconsider his decision allowing the move.

The petition seeks to persuade Montgomery County Orphans' Court Judge Stanley Ott, who has jurisdiction over Dr. Albert Barnes' trust, to rescind his order to remove the current board of directors and place the foundation in receivership.

"It's a drastic remedy, but drastic measures require drastic remedies," Mark Schwartz, lawyer for a citizens' group seeking to block the move, said at a news conference held on a neighbor's lawn across the street from the Barnes.

The suburban gallery, which holds a world-famous trove of French Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces and thousands of other important paintings and objects, won Ott's permission in 2004 to deviate from Barnes' will, which instructs that his paintings "remain in exactly the places they are" after his death.

The foundation's board of trustees said that moving the museum from Lower Merion Township to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was necessary to rescue it from the brink of bankruptcy.

Barnes, a pharmaceutical magnate who died in a 1951 car crash, established the foundation in 1922 to teach populist methods of appreciating and evaluating art.

His collection has been housed since 1925 in a 23-room limestone gallery that was created by acclaimed French architect Paul Philippe Cret. Barnes placed his paintings close together and grouped them with objects such as metal hinges and wrought ironwork as a teaching tool to illustrate common aesthetic themes.

Opponents of the move, led by a group called Friends of the Barnes Foundation, note that much has changed since Judge Ott granted the foundation permission to move.

In June, Montgomery County proposed to buy the Barnes' land and buildings for $50 million and lease them back to the foundation. The money would be raised through the sale of bonds, with no taxpayer involvement, and proceeds from the sale would be used to start an operating endowment to put the Barnes on sound financial footing.

Last month, Lower Merion officials also repealed rules that had strictly limited the number of paying customers; passed a zoning ordinance that would more than double the number of visitors permitted annually, to 140,000; and replaced a rule that allowed the Barnes to be open to the public three days a week and restricted it to about 400 visitors daily.

Barnes officials have said the offers came far too late to be taken seriously.

Since getting the go-ahead, the Barnes has raised $150 million, including a $25 million grant from the state and millions more from three charitable foundations, to build a new home on the Parkway and establish an operating endowment. *