‘I came into the world maladjusted – and I’m still that,’ admitted the Philadelphian chemist, entrepreneur and art collector Dr Albert Barnes (1872–1951) in a rare moment of self-awareness. His words go to the heart of his contrarian nature: a rags-to-riches businessman sensitive to the merest slight; a champion of democratic and progressive causes who was at heart an autocrat and not above using racial slurs; a public benefactor whose art collection and foundation were also a tax shelter for his fortune. Barnes was a walking oxymoron, summed up by the artist Thomas Hart Benton as ‘magnificent’ but also ‘a ruthless, underhanded son of a bitch’.

In any account of Barnes’s life, his poor behaviour tends to eclipse his achievements and acts of generosity. Blake Gopnik, in a new and lively biography, toggles between the two sides of this maverick Maecenas. The successes are certainly there, most notably in the creation of Argyrol, the silver-based antiseptic that saved the sight of so many infants with congenital gonorrhea and made its inventor a millionaire. Barnes amassed one of the greatest collections of modern art in the United States, which still survives as the Barnes Foundation of Philadelphia. Barnes also displayed a habitual kindness and generosity towards underlings and the disadvantaged that went beyond common charity. His affinity with the culture and struggles of black people was also a remarkable public position in the USA of the 1920s and 30s. 

The positive side of the balance sheet is clearly displayed in The Maverick’s Museum, but Gopnik does not minimise the fact that Barnes was his own worst enemy, someone who used invective and aggression as a means of asserting power in relationships, especially if he felt challenged or crossed. Bertrand