The Barnes Foundation is one of the most important collections of Post-Impressionist and early Modernist art in the world, home to masterworks by Cezanne, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, and others. Established in 1922 by Dr. Albert C. Barnes, a scientist and entrepreneur who amassed paintings, decorative art, and African sculpture (before it was widely collected), the Foundation was conceived with a mission to educate the public about art and, more importantly, how artists see and interpret the world.
The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks is the definitive guide to the Foundation, affordably priced at $40 to help make it accessible to the public. The cover pictures three objects—a Matisse painting, an African sculpture, and a key—suggesting the idiosyncratic nature of the collection, applied to a cloth cover that has the tactile quality of the galleries' cloth-covered walls. A deluxe edition of the book comes in slipcase featuring a debossed facsimile of a keyhole escutcheon.
