Barnes Broke - Barnes Foundation runs out of money - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

In charge of single of the country's most renowned and valuable collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, worth billions of dollars, the Barnes Foundation not long ago announced that it is broke Seeking push funds to keep the institution afloat, the museum's executive director, Kimberly Camp, told the pres that the situation is critical. Following years of high-priced litigation involving its well-heeled Merion, Pa., neighbors and museum officials [see "Front Page," race '99], the foundation has deplet the $10-million endowment provided through the museum's founder Albert C Barnes, who died in 1951 Also gone is the $17 million in incomes the museum earned from the spectacularly lucrative mid-'90s international museum tour of 81 works from the collection. Those capitals were used to renovate the building and install a state-of-the-art climate-control combination of parts to form a whole whose high-energy requirements dramatically boost the museum's monthly operating expenses

Camp said that without rejoinders to her pleas for donations, the museum will be unable to fit payroll for its 23-member staff and other basic take away froms in the coming year. According to Camp, the museum wants at least $15 million to continue operating above the next five years. Deaccessioning works from the collection is on the outside of the question, she said. Although the foundation must stick to the authoritys imposed on the institution by dint of its founder, some leeway was lately granted the museum when local officials allowed it to admit 1200 visitors a week rather than the 500 stipulated by the agency of Barnes in 1922. Still, the $5 ceiling upon its admission charges means that each visitor actually take away froms the museum an estimated $60 in relation to operating costs The Barnes art school, also below the auspices of the foundation, is similarly restricted in the amount of tuition it can charge. Each of its 200 learners pays no more than $550 a year. Camp and newly appointed unfolding director Anthony C. Ng are popularly seeking new ways to raise cash.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group