Barnes President Kenneth Sadler, a dentist from North Carolina, said yesterday that he is remaining on the board but declined to say whom Watson and Donaldson are replacing.
Until the Watson and Donaldson elections, the other Lincoln-nominated board members were Connecticut health-care executive Randolph Kinder, former Lincoln President Niara Sudarkasa, and Philadelphia lawyer Richard H. Glanton. The board memberships are unpaid positions.
Donaldson said yesterday that Kinder had told him that he is remaining on the board. Kinder could not be reached for comment. Sudarkasa declined to comment on her status yesterday, and Glanton did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Sudarkasa and Glanton have been subjects of controversy in the past.
Sudarkasa resigned as Lincoln's president last year after a state investigation found a pattern of financial mismanagement by her and some school administrators.
Glanton, who led the Barnes as its president for eight years, is credited with sending the foundation's celebrated paintings on a successful world tour and opening the institution to a wider audience.
But his efforts met resistance from neighbors and Lower Merion Township because of fears of increased traffic at the Merion gallery. That opposition led the Barnes to sue Lower Merion, accusing the township of enforcing its municipal code in a discriminatory manner against the foundation because it is controlled by historically black Lincoln University. The suit was later dismissed.
Glanton was ousted as the foundation's president and administrative director in early 1998, but he remained as a trustee.
The newly elected trustees bring a strong combination of art expertise, education training and knowledge of museums and urban redevelopment.
Watson, a close friend of former Mayor W. Wilson Goode, is a former deputy superintendent of Philadelphia schools and now serves as vice chairman of the Convention Center Authority. He has also served or serves on the boards of the Avenue of the Arts, Comcast Corp., the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the New Jersey State Aquarium.
A nationally known educator, Watson earned a doctorate in education administration and sociology from the University of Chicago in 1967. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and Temple University, where he chaired the urban education department, served as the academic vice president and is now a presidential scholar.
He declined to comment about his election to the Barnes or whom he is replacing. He said he had no particular plans for the Barnes.
Donaldson, an artist who last month retired as dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University, said he serves on the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Museum of the National Center for African-American Artists in Boston.
While studying for a doctorate in art history at Northwestern University in the early 1970s, Donaldson said, he did research on the Barnes Foundation. He said he found its eccentric founder, Albert C. Barnes - a millionaire who amassed a priceless collection of art but restricted public access to it - to be ``a very interesting individual, to say the least.''
Since then, Donaldson said, he has not followed the goings-on at the foundation.
``I do know there were some problems and tensions, but the specifics I don't know,'' said Donaldson, who said he did not know whom he was replacing. ``But it's a wonderful collection.''
