Albert Coombs Barnes was an American inventor of the antiseptic Argyrol (a mild silver protein anti-infective compound for mucous membrane tissues) and noted art collector, whose collection is a part of the Barnes Foundation Galleries.
Background
Albert Barnes was born on January 2, 1872 in Philadelphia to working-class parents. His father, John Barnes, served in the Civil War, and afterward became a mail carrier. His mother, Lydia Schaffer, was a devout Methodist who took him to African American camp meetings and revivals.
Education
He attended Central High School, Philadelphia, and received his M. D. from the University of Pennsylvania Medical College in 1892.
Barnes spent a year as resident physician in a sanitarium, went to Berlin in 1894 to study physiological chemistry, and entered the University of Heidelberg in 1899.
Career
Returning to the United States, Barnes originated and manufactured two proprietary drugs, and at thirty-five was a millionaire. He began purchasing paintings in the early 1900's; within a few years he was devoting his full time to collecting. He early appreciated the merits of Cezanne, Degas, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, and Renoir, before their acceptance by most critics, and formed a valuable collection. Barnes also assembled a fine collection of old masters, sculpture, furniture, and Pennsylvania handicrafts. In 1922 he established the Barnes Foundation at Merion, Pennsylvania, endowing it with $10, 000, 000, to give free instruction in art to deserving students. Early in the foundation's history Barnes himself lectured. He wrote The Art in Painting (1925) and collaborated on French Primitives and Their Forms from their Origin to the End of the Fifteenth Century (1931), The Art of Henri Matisse (1933), The Art of Renoir (1935), and The Art of Cézanne (1939). Barnes was an officer of the Legion of Honor. He died on July 24, 1951 near Philadelphia.