Art Held Hostage: The Battle over the Barnes Collection
Art Held Hostagereveals the messy inside story about the most infamous world-class art museum that you’ve probably never heard of.  The saga begins with the life and times of Albert C. Barnes, a Philadelphia business magnet who, after making his fortune during the Depression, becomes one of America’s most important collectors of impressionist and post-impressionist art.  The collection includes famed paintings by such luminaries as Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, and Renoir. Barnes became well known for his harsh personality and instigated a problematic invitation-only policy to his museum, located in a Philadelphia suburb. Strangely, even after Barnes’ death the museum continued to become embroiled in financial, legal, and community disputes.  The story gets uglier during the 1990s with a series of lawsuits for the foundation’s high-profile president, including a racial discrimination suit and eventually near-bankruptcy for the collection.   Author John C. Anderson, a contributing editor ofThe American Lawyermagazine, spares no cynical detail in his investigation into this truly American tale of power, litigiousness, and boardroom antics. This is a book for those interested in the dark underbelly of the business side of the art world.-- J.P. Cohen