Ben Franklin Museum

Barnes passes $200m mark for new home | Philadelphia Inquirer | 2011-06-28

The Barnes Foundation announced today that it has surpassed the $200 million fund-raising target for construction of its new facility on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.

The foundation, which has struggled financially in its longtime location in Merion, also reported that it has seen rapid growth in museum membership - from 400 members two years ago to over 10,000 now.

"Surpassing our initial fund-raising mark and attracting thousands of members clearly demonstrate enthusiasm for the Barnes Foundation's compelling vision of access and openness," said Bernard C. Watson, chairman of the foundation's board of trustees, in a statement.

The announcement means that about $40 million in new donations have been booked over the last year or so. Officials provided no details about the sources of the funds, although they said all donors were private. No additional public funds have been received. The state of Pennsylvania has provided about $47 million toward construction.

Of the $200 million now raised by the foundation, $150 million will go toward construction of the Philadelphia building and associated costs, and $50 million will go to the foundation's endowment.

"The Barnes has long been handicapped by the lack of an adequate endowment, and this initial endowment is a critical step forward." said Derek Gillman, Barnes executive director and president.

Gilman said the funding would "allow us to continue our core educational programs while making the collection so much more accessible to an expanded audience of visitors and students."

Founded by wealthy patent-medicine maker and art collector Albert Barnes, the foundation is steward of a renowned collection of Impressionist and early Modernist paintings.

Since determining a decade ago that relocating the collection to Philadelphia would provide the foundation its best chance for financial survival, the Barnes has been embroiled in litigation.

The institution is governed by a trust indenture drawn up by its founder that directed that the paintings and other artifacts remain in place in Merion. But a 2006 ruling in Montgomery County Orphan's Court allowed the move.

Another round of litigation brought by tenacious opponents of the move is now before the court, with a hearing set for Aug. 1.

Meanwhile, the gallery building in Merion will close permanently on Sunday in preparation for the move. The new Philadelphia facility is expected to open next summer.

On The Brooklyn Museum - Ben Franklin Workshop

In 1889, the same yr that Vincent van Gogh painted Starry Evening, the Húnkpapa Lakoda warrior Rain-in-the_Face illustrated a chronicle of his exploits — horse-stealing, making conflict and even the heroic rescue of a chief’s daughter throughout a battle with U.S. troopers — on the liner of his tipi. As the tipi reveals, Native People had structure as well as art. More than 30 completely different Plains Indian tribes spread from Texas to Canada used tipis as shelters throughout a lot of the nineteenth century.

This portable dwelling is the focus of "Tipi: Heritage of the Nice Plains" on the Brooklyn Museum, which has taken the presumably crowd-pleasing opportunity of erecting a number of actual tipis as part of the show (the Indians of Brooklyn, and the rest of the northeast, did not use tipis). Guests are allowed to enter one instance, which soars 28 ft into the museum’s fifth-ground rotunda. It was constructed around three slender picket poles, to which others have been added, after which a painted canvas (formerly a buffalo-cover masking) was unfurled on top and secured.

The museum commissioned this splendid tipi from Blackfeet artist Lyle J. Heavy Runner, who owns the design. Historically, designs have been handed down from era to era, and pictorial imagery is based on visions males skilled throughout non secular ceremonies. This instance known as Bleeding Buffalo Skull. The primary crimson motif can be interpreted as a bleeding buffalo cranium or as males holding pipes or hatchets. The design, which is learn from the ground up, has many different elements.

The show comprises more full-measurement tipis, giving an idea of the evolution of the form. One is a replica of a Lakota buffalo-cover tipi that dates to pre-Reservation days, or before 1860. One other is from the Southern Cheyenne, relationship to 1904, and is stuffed with beautifully made backrests and painted parfleches (folded, rawhide rectangular containers).

Ladies have been sometimes accountable for making the tipi, and in lots of tribes they contributed abstract, beaded medallions to tipi covers, as can be seen within the 1904 tipi on display. Ladies also made a lot of the household’s possessions, and designed geometric motifs for clothes and small portable objects. Additionally you’ll want to try different article topics resembling Parking in Brooklyn , tv tray tables and scholarships for single mothers .

Benjamin Franklin, a perspective : [catalogue of] an exhibition held at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 17 through September 22, 1975

Benjamin Franklin, biographical overview and bibliography

Merry's museum

Ben Franklin's Philadelphia, a guide

Frommer's 500 Places to Take Your Kids Before They Grow Up