The movie the The Art of the Steal revolves around a collection of artwork that was acquired by a man named Albert Barnes during the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is a documentary style movie that allows the viewer to get a sense of what life and the art trade was like during the time period. The main conflict within the film is that when Barnes dies the massive collection was meant to be kept together in one area. However, due to the price and monetary value of the artwork individuals argued that the artwork should be placed on display for the world to see and should be a major Philadelphia attraction. The movie gives a great sense of the conflict between the preservation of art and the financial value that art presents.
The film does a fantastic job at explaining the collection that Mr. Barnes was able to acquire over his lifetime. It went on to explain exactly how he was able to attain this massive collection and showed how he would go over to France and buy paintings that were deemed “not professional” and from a “terrible time period of artwork”, this was surprising to me as I felt that modernist and post-impressionist artwork was always considered to be a higher class of art that was a world-renowned style. The movie taught me however, that this is not the case and that this form of painting was highly criticized for its style and didn’t have near the value it does today which is why Barnes was able to acquire so many of them. The film goes on to discuss what exactly modernist artwork is. This is positive because it explains the area of artwork that is collected and displayed. The main thing that I enjoyed about this film is how it depicted Barnes as a passionate art collector who wanted to preserve his collection and use it teach young artists and educate other collectors.
The film did a great job of depicting how the collection was gathered by Barnes and was very informative about his life and lifestyle. He was a pharmaceutical genius who made a fortune from selling drugs, to which he used to fuel his art collection that was located in Lower Marion, near Philadelphia. The film then switches gears and gets to the main conflict of the event which is what to do with the artwork when Barnes had passed away. In his will he claimed he wanted all of this art to remain where it was and to never be separated or made accessible to the public. This started a huge controversy amongst many parties who felt that keeping the artwork from the world was a crime. There were others who argued that it was Barnes collection and that his will should be followed exactly, preventing the artwork from going on display. Mr. Barnes really wanted to keep the painting as a form of education for those who had a keen interest in art and could gain insight and meaning from the painting and not only that but learn from it rather than the average person just paying to see it without any intentions of using it fuel their own creativity. The aspiring artists would be able to view the gallery through approval from the foundation which would also present a cost, much like the way a university is set up charging fees to use their facility and receive and education.
The film is interesting in that it does focus on the artwork and goes on to explain that Barnes collection in a remote area of Philadelphia is worth an estimated twenty-five billion dollars, making it one of the most valuable of all time. He was able to acquire over 9000 paintings including 181 Renoirs, 69 Cezannes, 60 Matisses, 44 Picassos and 14 Modiglianis. These are huge names in the art community as Picasso and Modigliani painting sell for hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars for original works. This is what caused the huge controversy as making these painting available to the public could generate a huge revenue for museums and the city of Philadelphia in general. It is obvious that people wanted to exploit this collection and hoped to make a fortune off it but Barne’s will prevented it from being moved, sold, or viewed by anyone other than a student of the art community.
The main focus of the film begins to unfold as the director describes the various lawsuits and court hearing that take place in order to make these works visible to the public and to buyers and in turn going against the wishes of Barnes. The other aspect that allowed for this is the fact that his education center or private museum, for lack of a better word, was drowning in debt and could not support themselves any longer making it even more difficult to respect Barnes wishes. The lawsuits continued until finally the will was broken and the artworks were separated and began to travel all over the world to different museums and put on public display. The film talks about possible conspiracies involved where they thought that huge donations and other funding helped come to a final court hearing of allowing the artwork to be moved.
The movie attempts not to take sides and just give facts about what had occurred in terms of physical events that had taken place. However, they are biased in the end and feel that the wishes of Barnes should not have been disrupted, meaning they should have stayed in their original collection not sold or viewed by the “average” person. They do this by explaining the results of hearings and the destiny of the art in a mundane fashion. I enjoyed the back and forth debate that the viewer is faced with in terms of would you want your wishes disobeyed and on the other hand should these works really be private and not be allowed to be enjoyed by everyone regardless of education background or even financial background. I think that overall I enjoyed learning about this case and it taught me a great deal about the true value of art, as a 25-billion-dollar collection was something I didn’t even know was possible. It also informed me about the process of the art trade in general, I didn’t know so much goes into this community which was evident at the number of people and lawyers who were involved in this case.
Although I wouldn’t want my death wishes disobeyed I don’t believe it was right of Mr. Barnes to keep his collection from the world as they have a huge impact on the art community as a whole. His collection has so much to offer for those studying modernism and wish to see famous artwork of the time period, and along with this, artists made their work for the people to enjoy most importantly and I think keeping it from society was wrong of Barnes to do. Overall, I disagreed with the view point of the film-makers and instead choose to side with the decision to make the artworks open to the public even if this meant separating the collection.
