George Grey Barnard

Description

George Grey Barnard was a prominent American sculptor and art collector. Born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, in 1863, he studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and later in Paris. His sculptural style was influenced by Symbolism. He received financial support from Alfred Corning Park, a wealthy heir of Isaac Merritt Singer (Merino de Cáceres and Martínez Ruiz, 2023). Among his most notable sculptures are The Struggle of the Two Natures in Man (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and The Hewer (Halliday Park, Illinois).

Barnard was also a passionate collector of medieval art. After the death of his mentor, he was compelled to sell some pieces from his collection to dealers such as Demotte and Cornilon. In 1905, he settled in Moret-sur-Loing, where he opened an antique shop. The shop’s swift success led Barnard to search for new pieces, focusing mainly on medieval architectural fragments. He held a particular interest in sculptures and architectural elements from churches and monasteries (Merino de Cáceres and Martínez Ruiz, 2023). His personal taste led him to acquire many pieces from the Monastery of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, especially from its cloister. After exportation, this monastery became the foundation of The Cloisters, located on Fort Washington Avenue in New York. The name was later changed to The Barnard Cloisters. Although the museum was a blend of dispersed architectural elements, it caught the attention of John D. Rockefeller Jr., who made an offer of $600,000 for the collection in the 1920s (Merino de Cáceres and Martínez Ruiz, 2023). In 1938, The Cloisters was officially inaugurated, a space recreating the atmosphere of a European medieval monastery, to which Barnard contributed significantly with his pieces.

Bibliography

• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel y MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, María José (2023): De Fuentidueña a Manhattan. Patrimonio y diplomacia en España (1952-1961), Cátedra, Madrid, pp. 62-69.