Yesterday I attended the opening of the Barnes Foundation Museum in Philadelphia, probably the biggest gallery opening in the past 25 years. What can be bigger than this collection, other than the opening of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles?

Art snobs will tell you this collection of French Impressionism is unparalleled in the United States. Albert C. Barnes pooh-poohed then-art lovers who turned their collective backs on these works while he embraced them. He filled his Merion, Pa., home with pieces he collected from his travels and wrote an iron-clad will (or so he thought), to keep them in his home museum forever.

Times changed, and his foundation successfully broke the will, moving the collection to the stunning new downtown location on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, home to many other Philadelphia museums. Of course, the crybabies who own houses around the original location on the Main Line were up in arms and tried to block the move. This is the same group who complained about visitor traffic and the commotion the suburban Main Line museum created.

Barnes was killed in a car crash in 1951, and for over 30 years the museum operated by appointment only. This is still the case in the new Barnes. Many of Philadelphia’s elite opted to help the Barnes through membership.

The art is almost overwhelming and is much larger than I ever imagined. Art lovers can get really close to the works of Matisse, Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Manet, Monet and Picasso. It is an eclectic collection of art, furniture, wrought iron and various artifacts.

I encourage you to pay a visit!

— Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO