Barnes Foundation

Though it’s now one of Philadelphia’s essential museums, the Barnes Foundation hasn’t actually been in Philadelphia all that long. Housed for decades at a historic arboretum building in suburban Merion, the museum grew out of the personal collection of Dr. Albert C. Barnes, who, despite his career in medicine, was an impassioned art lover. Barnes had prescient taste, and the museum’s collection features a roster of heavy-hitters from Picasso and Van Gogh to Matisse, Renoir, and Modigliani.

Its expansive new Philadelphia home makes the Barnes Foundation that much easier to visit. Tickets can be booked online in advance of your visit and are eligible for 48 hours. The museum’s exterior can also be viewed on a number of hop-on hop-off bus tours, which pass it as they coast along the city’s famed Parkway.

• In addition to its permanent collection, the Barnes Foundation also hosts a rotating array of temporary exhibitions, talks, and tours.

• The Barnes Foundation is host to a restaurant (the Garden Restaurant), a café (the Reflections Café), and also operates a gift shop for those seeking souvenirs.

• The museum is accessible to standard-size wheelchairs, includes a wheelchair-accessible restroom, and has a limited number of wheelchairs for rental.

• All bags are inspected upon entry, and larger items like backpacks and strollers must be stored in the coat check or in lockers.

The Barnes Foundation is located on the Parkway at 20th Street. It is a roughly 10-minute walk from Suburban Station, which is served by numerous train lines, and can also be reached by numerous SEPTA bus lines. The Philly Phlash, a low-cost shuttle that connects many of Philadelphia’s key tourist attractions, also has a stop right outside.

The Barnes Foundation is open throughout the year from Thursday to Monday. It closes every year on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. Because tickets are released in limited numbers, it’s recommended to book in advance of your visit.

For a museum so chock-full of masterpieces, it can be hard to narrow down the Barnes Foundation’s collection highlights. But many visitors seek several special pieces, including The Card Players by Cézanne, The Postman by Van Gogh, Models by Seurat, and The Dance by Matisse, created by the artist specifically for the museum’s original location.

Guided tours of the Barnes Foundation take one hour. You can choose a highlights tour, small-group private tour, or monthly themed tour. Other special talks and tours are sometimes on, lasting around an hour. You also can tour independently and take your time exploring the 12,000-square-foot (1,115-square-meter) gallery.

The collection of more than 2,500 works at the Barnes Foundation is currently estimated to be worth US$30 billion. Even more extraordinary, the collection’s founder, Albert Barnes, paid rock-bottom prices for the art during the Great Depression, buying it off formerly wealthy owners who needed to sell.

Before Albert Barnes died in 1951, he left strict instructions on how his collection should be displayed to promote education and limit commercialization. In the following decades, his wishes were overruled. After years of litigation and dwindling funds, the collection was moved to its current home in Philadelphia in 2012.

The Barnes Foundation has more than 2,500 works of art by some of the world’s most famous artists, including Picasso, van Gogh, Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse. The collection focuses on impressionist and post-impressionist art and also includes African art, Greek antiquities, Native American ceramics, European Renaissance art, and more.

Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation is famous for having one of the most remarkable—and valuable—collections of art in the world. Its founding collector, Albert Barnes, was a businessman who died in 1951. He mainly focused on impressionist, post-impressionist, and early modern art, which he arranged together in what he called “ensembles.”

Since 2012 the Barnes Foundation has been located on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in the Franklintown district of Philadelphia. Previously, it was housed in a mansion built especially for the collection in 1922 in Lower Merion, western Philadelphia. That building underwent renovations and now houses the Frances M. Maguire Art Museum.