Richard H. Glanton, Combative Head of Barnes Foundation, Dies at 79

Richard H. Glanton, a combative president of the Barnes Foundation who in the 1990s went against the wishes of the institution’s eccentric founder by taking 80 French artworks outside of its neoclassical home for a first-ever tour to raise funds, died on June 21 at his home in Princeton, N.J. He was 79.

His wife, Eileen Glanton, said the cause was a heart attack.

Mr. Glanton, a lawyer, wanted to turn the Barnes — long an insular art school and museum in the Philadelphia suburb of Merion with one of the world’s greatest private art collections — into a higher-visibility institution, like the Frick Collection in Manhattan.

But with its endowment shrinking and its long-neglected building in urgent need of repairs, Mr. Glanton turned his focus in 1991 to raising some $15 million for a renovation.

“The problems at the Barnes were so obvious,” he told The New York Times in 1993, “Ray Charles could see them in a swamp at midnight.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/arts/design/richard-h-glanton-dead.html