Last year, the loving hubby and I saw this amazing movie/documentary called “the Art of the Steal”. It’s on Netflix right now and I highly recommend making it your next TV night.
It relates the true story of this genius scientist who invented a revolutionary product in the 1920’s that made him extremely wealthy overnight. And he invested his new found wealth in young emerging (unknown) artists called Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse…
He built a gallery to exhibited his amazing collection and organized a big opening night where he invited all of Philadelphia’s high society.
The night didn’t go as planned: They all mocked his collection of unconventional new artists. And all the newspapers ridiculed his exhibition the next day.
Shocked and hurt, Mr Albert Barnes (our scientist) swore to never allow Philadelphia’s society to see his magnificent collection of 2,500 pieces again and he closed his house to the public forever. His even put in his will to never sell, break up or remove his extensive collection from his gallery, even after his death (and he had no descendants).
The documentary is the fascinating story of how Philadelphia’s art community finally got control of his collection 100 years later and was able to move his collection to a new art museum.
So when the new museum finally opened a few months ago, we were eager (although feeling a bit guilty) to go see it. The collection includes 181 Renoir, 69 Cezanne, 60 Matisse and 44 Picasso. It is estimated at 25 billion dollars (yes, Billion).
And we were not disappointed…
a Tryptich was custom made by Matisse on the ceiling:
Baby Boy puzzled by modern art… and isn’t it the point of modern art?
but trying to find answers
discussing the exhibition with dad afterwards
and testing the water on our way out:
It was an unbelievable experience. However I have to say that this one might be one to do without the children. The rooms are small and he quickly got bored, so we had to run through the whole exhibit in 45 min.
Which is a tat frustrating when you know that the exhibit is in Philadelphia and it took us a 2 hour drive each way.
Kids and The City 