Lessons in Collecting from Dr. Albert Barnes
By Chadd Scott on
Albert Barnes (1872–1951) was one of this country’s greatest art collectors. Dr. Albert Barnes. He made his fortune co-inventing antiseptic.
Anyone with tons of money can collect art. Separating the mere shoppers from the memorable collectors are vision, commitment, legwork, confidence – among other characteristics. Fortunately, none of those skills require a private jet. They are skills we can all hone.
Barnes didn’t simply buy spectacular art, although he did buy spectacular art. Between 1912 and 1951 he acquired one of the largest private holdings of oil paintings by Paul Cézanne in the world. Ditto Pierre Auguste Renoir. Sixty-one oil on canvas Cézanne paintings. He purchased a particularly exceptional Cézanne “Card Players” painting, one of the most important artworks of the 19th century; if it came to market today, it would sell for more than $500 million.
Visiting the Barnes Foundation museum in Philadelphia, his hometown, is to be barraged by a stupefying number of Cézanne and Renoir paintings. Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Chaim Soutine, and Maurice Prendergast as well. Van Gogh’s The Postman (Joseph-Étienne Roulin) (1889) represents one of the most famous images in art history. Surely you’ve seen it before. Another $500 million painting today. Starting price.
A painting by Paul Cézanne rests atop a display case filled with Native American jewelry and antiquities at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Photo by Chadd Scott.
In 2026, collecting Cézanne and Van Gogh and Renoir and Matisse doesn’t feel adventurous. These are the most famous and beloved artists in art history. That wasn’t the case when Barnes was buying them. They were popular and recognized as important, but nowhere near to the degree they are today. Barnes’ support of these artists uplifted their profiles and prices. He was early on them. He had a vision for Modern art uncommon in his day.
Vision honed through education.
Barnes was a student of art history. So much so that he passed his passion for art on to his employees. Amazingly, Barnes held art appreciation classes in his factory. He’d shut down production for two hours each workday to discuss art and philosophy with his employees. Imagine that happening at an Amazon warehouse today?
Barnes also had the confidence to trust his vision. He went all-in on the artists he admired.
Education and confidence, those are attributes even those of us who sweat art purchases in the hundreds-of-dollars range can pick up.
Barnes’ interests were also greatly varied, and perhaps this is the greatest lesson he can teach us as collectors. Barnes didn’t only purchase late 19th and early 20th century French paintings, he collected African art, American furniture, Egyptian and Asian antiques, wrought-iron metalwork, and Native American pottery and jewelry mostly from the Southwest.
Dr. Albert Barnes in the Southwest
Barnes made his first visit to the Southwest in 1929, traveling with his wife and hosted in Taos by art patron Mabel Dodge Luhan and her Pueblo husband, Tony Lujan. While there, he attended a sacred winter Deer Dance at Taos Pueblo. He was astonished by what he saw. I was too when I attended a Deer Dance in December of 2024.
What I experienced was similar to what Barnes experienced a century prior and what a visitor a century before that would have seen. The ceremony is remarkably unchanged, one of the most traditional among the Pueblos. Male Deer Dancers covered in deer carcasses. Two Deer Maidens around whom they circulate. Tribal members dressed in their finest regalia – silver, turquoise, coral, shell, feathers – shaking gourd rattles in a ring enclosing both. A drum beat pulses throughout.
It is the most extraordinary thing I have had the honor of witnessing in my life.
Barnes felt similarly.
A remarkable letter Barnes wrote to Henri Matisse – yes, that Henri Matisse – describing the ceremony remains among the Collection items.
“It describes the feelings, the emotions he felt, and how his senses were heightened visually,” Lucy Fowler Williams told me in 2022 when she co-curated an exhibition centered on Barnes’ Southwest collecting. “The rhythm of the dance. He (writes) about it as being a really moving experience for him. He invites Matisse to come and see a dance. He wishes he had been there with him.”
Imagine that!
Matisse at Taos Pueblo observing a dance. Matisse famously painted dance during his career. How might the Deer Dance have inspired him?
“You can tell (Barnes) felt a part of that dance,” Williams continued. “That’s what happens when you’re an observer or a guest there at the Pueblos, right there on the plaza, right next to the dancers. We can imagine how he felt.”
The Best of the Best – Together
Surprisingly, Barnes displayed all of his artworks together.
Silver turquoise rings and earrings next to an Etruscan vase from 700 B.C.
A silver concho belt with an Egyptian hieroglyphic stone carving from 2,000 B.C.
A squash blossom necklace beside a 5th century Chinese head carving.
Navajo rugs with Modigliani sculpture.
Navajo textiles hang behind a Modigliani sculpture at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Photo by Chadd Scott.
The Barnes Foundation recreates the seemingly bizarre mashups Barnes featured in his home. What’s amazing is how well the combos work.
Twentieth century quash blossom necklaces next to Greek sculpture from 300 BC doesn’t feel weird at the Barnes Foundation. Nor Navajo textiles next to Jacques Lipshitz’ Cubist sculptures.
Barnes recognized – and proved – the best of the best of art from any time period from any culture from anywhere around the world will go together. Game recognizes game. Beauty and skill being a stronger connective tissue than era or geography.
I believe focus builds remarkable personal collections. Particularly on limited means. If you aspire to building a personal art collection that achieves significance one day, focus on what you know and love best, be that contemporary African American quilts or Zuni kachinas.
Barnes proved, in exceptional cases, the reverse can also be true. The lesson being if you buy the best – and study and seek counsel and are confident in identifying what the best is – everything will work together in the end.
Medicine Man Gallery exemplifies both philosophies.
The Gallery’s amazing holdings allow for collecting in depth with historic and contemporary Pueblo pottery, historic and contemporary Navajo textiles, historic and contemporary Southwestern jewelry, ledger drawings, Shonto Begay paintings, Maynard Dixon artworks, Billy Schenk paintings, Ed Mell prints, baskets, kachinas, sculptures.
And because Medicine Man Gallery only deals in the best, any and all of its disparate items would look good on display together.
Tell me what artwork from any time period produced anywhere in the world wouldn’t look good, wouldn’t be augmented, when placed next to a Maria Martinez pot?
Medicine Man Gallery founder and owner Mark Sublette has some Dr. Albert Barnes in him – not only because Sublette is an MD as well. Of course Sublette’s deep study of art and vision and confidence for collecting reflect Barnes, but while Sublette is known as one of the foremost experts on Maynard Dixon, he also owns work from contemporary African American installation artist Leonardo Drew?
Buy the best and you’ll be OK in the end.
Barnes and Sublette prove that.
Silver and turquoise Native American jewelry on display among antiquities at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Photo by Chadd Scott.
Tips for Art Collectors
My number one tip for collecting art is a simple one: look.
Look.
Look at as much art as you can.
Look at galleries, fairs, and museums. Look in books and documentaries and YouTube videos. Look and learn. Train your eye.
Fortunately, looking at art is a great joy. The more you look, the more you’ll enjoy looking. The more you look, the more you will want to look. The more you look, the more you’ll learn. The more you learn, the more discerning you will become. The more your tastes will become defined and sharpened. The more confident you will grow in your potential purchases, whether those purchases are made in the $500 or $50,000 range.
Having looked at thousands of artworks over many years, you will come to understand what you like, what you value, and what you recognize as “good.” Trust that instinct.
You will never – I will never – put an art collection together 1/1,000,000th of what Barnes or Sublette achieved. That’s fine. The lessons they teach us can make whatever art we do purchase and display in our homes deeply meaningful and enriching for decades.
