Albert C. Barnes Correspondence 1902-1951 ABC
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25 Albert C. Barnes. Letter to Charles S. Johnson, March 30, 1926. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence,
Barnes Foundation Archives.
26 Albert C. Barnes. Letter to John Dewey, February 13, 1923. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence,
Barnes Foundation Archives.
27 Albert C. Barnes and John H. McClatchy. Essay, 1922. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence, Barnes
Foundation Archives.
28 See the historical notes included in finding aids for the manuscript collections in the Barnes
Foundation Archives.
29 Albert C. Barnes. Letter to Henri Matisse, February 10, [1931]. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence,
Barnes Foundation Archives.
30 Henri Matisse. Telegram to Albert C. Barnes, September 20, 1930. Albert C. Barnes
Correspondence, Barnes Foundation Archives.
31 Albert C. Barnes. Letter to Leo Stein, April 16, 1946. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence, Barnes
Foundation Archives. For evidence of Barnes’s purchase of art by Matisse from Gertrude Stein, see
also Albert C. Barnes. Letter to George Biddle, June 27, 1946. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence,
Barnes Foundation Archives.
32 Albert C. Barnes. Letter to Stuart Davis, April 1, 1942. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence, Barnes
Foundation.
33 Albert C. Barnes. Letter to Georges Keller, September 30, 1937. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence,
Barnes Foundation Archives.
34 See Albert C. Barnes. Last Will and Testament, October 6, 1944. In regard to his collection at Ker-
Feal and his plans to develop the site as an additional educational institution, see Albert C. Barnes.
Letter to J. F. Otwell, October 31, 1941. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence, Barnes Foundation
Archives.
35 See essays found in correspondence with House & Garden, 1942. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence,
Barnes Foundation Archives.
36 Albert C. Barnes. Letter to Horace Mann Bond, August 21, 1950. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence,
Barnes Foundation Archives.
Scope and Content
The collection consists of 126.5 linear feet of letters, cards, notes, telegrams, and enclosures such
as mailing lists, lecture notes, song sheets, postcards, invitations, exhibition catalogues, drawings,
pamphlets, legal papers, news clippings, recipes, and photographs. The majority of the collection
Albert C. Barnes Correspondence 1902-1951 ABC
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contains Dr. Barnes's own correspondence, with additional series for third-party correspondence and
personal papers. The order of the correspondence has been maintained as it was found in 2001, arranged
chronologically and alphabetically within the year. It is likely that this arrangement is the one used by Dr.
Barnes and his staff. Items clearly misfiled or not attached to correspondence such as folders containing
only financial receipts or writings have been removed. Because Barnes and his staff saved and filed both
letters received as well as carbon copies of Barnes’s responses, they captured historic “conversations,”
dialogues that offer a rich insight into the relationships that Barnes maintained with physicians, artists, art
dealers, scholars, collectors, publishers, museum directors, and politicians.
The earliest correspondence, which begins in 1902, documents the activities of Barnes’s business
partnership, Barnes and Hille. This correspondence includes chemical formulas and letters from
physicians, many from abroad, expressing support for the efficacy of Argyrol. Lengthy hand-written
letters between Barnes and his partner, Hermann Hille, as well as correspondence with Barnes’s lawyer,
John G. Johnson, reveal the details leading up to the dissolution of their partnership in 1908.
Evidence of the success of Barnes’s subsequent business, the A.C. Barnes Company, is found in
correspondence with brokerage firms and banks such as N.W. Halsey & Co., the National City
Company, the Chatham Phenix National Bank and Trust, and Halsey, Stuart & Co. which includes legal
opinions and other financial papers regarding investment bonds, and also in the receipts for expensive
automobiles, gifts of fine jewelry, and purchases of silver, clocks, and other select furnishings for his
estate, “Lauraston.” Barnes’s long-term financial relationship with the Girard Trust Company began in
1908 and continued until 1950.
Letters, notes, and receipts from artists and dealers provide rich provenance for the acquisition of
Barnes’s art collection. Beginning in 1912, the correspondents include artists William J. Glackens,
Charles Demuth, Maurice and Charles Prendergast, and Alfred Maurer, and art dealers Durand-Ruel, E.
Druet, Etienne Bignou, and M. Knoedler.
Dr. Barnes maintained a long-lived and intense relationship with collector Leo Stein. Their
correspondence began in 1912, the same year that Barnes began seriously collecting fine art, and
continued until Stein’s death in 1947. Barnes’s relationship with Leo Stein was both professional and
personal. In their letters, they shared their views on art, reviewed each other’s writings, and argued
intensely – one letter from Stein remains as yet unopened as a result of Barnes’s pique.
The correspondence with American philosopher and educator John Dewey is perhaps the most extensive
in the collection. Barnes began writing to Dewey in 1917, a correspondence that continued until Barnes’s
death in 1951. Their early letters reflect a formal student/teacher relationship and include discussions
about psychology, philosophy, experiments such as the “Polish study” undertaken in Philadelphia in 1918
which examined the social attitudes of an immigrant community, and their own writings as well as those
of others. Over the years, the correspondence reveals the growth of a warm friendship replete with humor,
travel stories, and gossip about mutual friends. More important, the Barnes/Dewey correspondence
contains discussions about their evolving views on education and democracy, the fundamental principles
of the Barnes Foundation.
The correspondence from 1922 to 1929 reflects Barnes’s dual role as president of both the Barnes
Foundation and his business, the A.C. Barnes Company. Included in this correspondence are tax papers,
references to personnel, and also legal papers drawn up by Barnes’s lawyer, future Supreme Court Justice
Owen J. Roberts, regarding the indenture and by-laws of the Foundation and its original trustees and