Quiet protest marks Barnes galleries' last day in Merion

A mixture of wistfulness and loss seemed to wrap itself around North Latchs Lane in Merion on Sunday, the last day the galleries of the Barnes Foundation there will be open to the public.

Since 1922, visitors and students have made the trek to the Paul Cret-designed building, a simple Renaissance palazzo of French sandstone set amid 12 leafy acres near City Avenue, to see and study the miraculous collection of Impressionist and early Modern works inside, the legacy of patent-medicine millionaire Dr. Albert C. Barnes.

With visitation strictly controlled, 450 tickets to view the Renoirs, Van Goghs, Cézannes, and Matisses on this last day have been sold out for quite some time. By late spring 2012, the paintings are expected to be on view roughly eight miles away in a museum under construction on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.

That move, brought on by perilous foundation finances over the last two decades, has often triggered protest demonstrations at the foundation's black iron gates.

So it was Sunday, with a couple of dozen quiet protesters out on Latchs Lane to greet early gallerygoers. Not unfamiliar signs were held aloft:

Don't dim the lights to hide your lies.

Merion Barnes Accessible Sustainable Real.

Nancy Herman, long opposed to the Philadelphia move, characterized the day as "bittersweet," but pointed out that opponents were still fighting in Montgomery County Orphans' Court to keep the paintings in their longtime home. Barnes died in 1951.

Inside the Barnes building, emotions were muted but strong.

"I know it's a big day," said Nick Miller, an Irish artist from County Sligo, who was visiting the Barnes for the first time. "I love museums like this where you have to make the pilgrimage to see the work in its context."

Miller, who has an exhibition at the Concord Art Association outside of Boston, was staggered by the sheer volume of Cézannes and Van Goghs at the Barnes. Even though the second floor of the galleries closed several months ago to facilitate conservation work, Cézannes and Renoirs and Seurats seemed to dot every wall.

The Barnes reminded Miller of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Both galleries reflect the unique perspectives of their founders.

In that sense, he said, the Barnes Foundation is more than the paintings in the collection.