Audio Tours at The Barnes Foundation

Celebrated for its exceptional breadth, depth, and quality, the Barnes Foundations art collection includes works by some of the greatest European and American masters of impressionism, post-impressionism, and early modern art, as well as African sculpture, Pennsylvania German decorative arts, Native American textiles, metalwork, and more.

Founder Albert C. Barnes arranged and rearranged his collections in “ensembles,” distinctive wall compositions organized according to formal principles of light, line, color, and space, rather than by chronology, nationality, style, or genre. The ensembles changed as Barnes made acquisitions and new aesthetic connections between the works. Integrating art and craft, and objects from across cultures and periods, Barnes sought to demonstrate the continuity of artistic traditions and the universalism of human expression.

This application explores individual works as well as the ensembles and includes interviews with curators and scholars at the Barnes Foundation and elsewhere. A family tour encourages children and their families to interact by considering the ways in which the objects in the ensembles relate to one another; the role of play or leisure in various objects; and the interaction of music and visual art.

Objects and ensembles by room, numeric keypad entry, and keyword search function enable you to access the guide anyway you wish.