Men of 'Steal': Barnes move to Parkway pilloried in new documentary

PHILADELPHIA IS starring in a new movie, but a handful of Philadelphians isn't too happy about it.

The movie is "The Art of the Steal," a documentary about Philadelphian Albert Barnes, his world-renowned collection of Impressionist and Postimpressionist art housed in Lower Merion, and the hijacking of that collection to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway by Philadelphia city officials and area philanthropists.

It's a very complicated tale, but the Daily News cocktail-party version is this: Barnes made a ton of dough in pharmaceuticals, went to Paris and bought paintings on the cheap of artists (Cezanne, Matisse, etc.) whose work he championed. He then built an art school in Lower Merion to show off his collection because he hated (yes, hated) everything about upper crust Philadelphia. Barnes died in 1951, and, as a final thumb in the eye of the city's high society, willed his collection to Lincoln University. Jump ahead nearly 50 years when an assortment of Philadelphia politicians, power brokers and the very rich folk whom Barnes couldn't stand use machinations that would have made Machiavelli weep with envy, to essentially destroy Barnes' dream and take control over the art, which is now worth more than $25 billion.

Enter Lenny Feinberg, who took classes at the Barnes and always found it to be a special place. He thought that the story of Barnes and his art would make a great movie, so he pitched the idea to Philadelphia documentarians Don Argott and Sheena Joyce ("Rock School," "Two Days in April").

"Don blew me off the first time," Feinberg said.

But persistence paid off and now the hometown film, which played to enthusiastic, sellout crowds at the Toronto and New York film festivals, is premiering in Philadelphia and New York on Friday (before going nationwide March 12), poking a stick at the same bears that Barnes did.

"We knew nothing about this story," Argott, the director, first told me at the Toronto International Film Festival, last September. "We came in as blank slates."

"We didn't really go into it with an agenda," Joyce, the producer, agreed.

But by "peeling back layer after layer," Joyce said, the filmmakers uncovered a convoluted story of closed-door dealings, power struggles, ideological arguments and a polarizing genius (maybe two if you count former Barnes boss Richard Glanton as a genius).

"They make Albert Barnes come alive, which no one has done a good job of in the past," said John Anderson, author of "Art Held Hostage: The Battle over the Barnes Collection." "They humanize Dr. Barnes. . . . It's also an extremely accurate portrait of a very complicated story."

Argott said that one of the things that the filmmakers found as they started their research was that the notion that the Barnes had to move to the Parkway because it was inaccessible was a canard.

"It's very, very easy to get into that place," he said. "It's filled with Europeans."

"They have access," added Feinberg, "and they could have more access if the trustees were willing to have shuttle buses and longer hours."

But no one in the story has been particularly eager to make the Barnes more accessible because then it would have been harder to justify a move. And no one was willing to pony up $50 million to make the Barnes' current address state-of-the-art, because then they couldn't spend more than $150 million (Recession? What recession?) to put it where they want. As "The Art of the Steal" carefully details, the decision-making deck regarding control of the Barnes had been stacked at Lincoln, at the Pew Charitable Trusts and in the state legislature.

Anderson said that the only key player missing from the film is former state Sen. Vince Fumo, "but that's not the fault of the filmmakers. Once you introduce Fumo, the story becomes even more difficult to follow."

Will "The Art of the Steal" be able to muster enough support to keep Barnes' collection where he wanted it and seen the way he designed it to be seen?

Probably not, but the filmmakers are pleased to have given Barnes a voice in the fight.

"We've been fortunate to be able to bring Albert Barnes back as a character and tell his story," Joyce said.

"He'd been forgotten and villainized," Feinberg added, "with negative after negative cast on a guy who's been dead for 60 years."

With so much local might behind it, the Barnes move also seems to have been fast-tracked.

"If you wanted to put a new railing on your stoop it would take you four times longer to get permits," Feinberg said a few weeks ago. "It's just who you know in this city."

But Anderson has an iota of hope that Barnes may get some long-term satisfaction from "The Art of the Steal."

"I didn't think so at first, but I do now," he said. He pointed to the story of Jane Jacobs, who stopped New York City's famed redesigner Robert Moses from bulldozing Greenwich Village.

"The Village was about homes," he said, "and Barnes is about art, but both are about community and doing the right thing, and preserving and saving our souls."

"We think Barnes would be pleased," Argott said.

"The Art of the Steal" opens Friday at the Ritz Five. The filmmakers will host a Q&A after the 7:25 p.m. show on Friday and Sunday. Author John Anderson will host a Q&A after the 7:25 p.m. show on Saturday.