Barney's art-buying was never an investment thesis dressed up in taste. It began the other way around. The Louvre had trained his eye on European work; he came to American artists, he writes in his Georgia O'Keeffe chapter, “with European eyes.” That gave him the detachment to see what other American collectors of his generation still hadn't: that American Modernism was underpriced because American collectors still had, in Barney's words, a cultural inferiority complex.
I came to American artists with European eyes; Europeans understood this type of art long before Americans did. We still had a cultural inferiority complex that told us that all great works of art came from Europe. American art didn't blossom until after World War II with artists such as Pollock, de Kooning, Kline, and Rothko.
— Barney on the American collector's inferiority complexThe Rule
Barney bought with a curator's discipline that was distinctly his own. He wanted the best of any given artist — the work from the year or decade when the artist was at the peak of their powers. He refused to own an artist's late, flabby decade just because the signature would still be valuable. He said no to sentimental late O'Keeffes. He said no to twilight Picassos. A record auction price did not move him; quality did.
Over three decades, working through the auction houses and a handful of trusted dealers and curators — Lloyd Goodrich at the Whitney, Doris Bry in New York, Charles Buckley at the St. Louis Art Museum — he assembled what would eventually be recognized as one of the most important private collections of twentieth-century American art in the country.
The Museum at Home
When Barney built his Hunts Point house in the 1990s, it was designed around the paintings. Automatic blinds ensured direct sunlight never damaged the works; the architecture deliberately receded so the art wouldn't have to fight the building. The whole length of the shower in the master bath was a window looking onto a Japanese garden, so that an ordinary bathroom moment felt like being in the middle of nature. Barney wanted a home that felt like a museum — direct, uncluttered, and unshowy in the way the best rooms at the Louvre are unshowy.
I liked the idea of living in a home that felt like a museum. It was direct and uncluttered, qualities I wanted my life to embody.
— On the Hunts Point houseKey Facts from Chapter Nine
- Collection focusTwentieth-century American Modernism — Hopper, O'Keeffe, Hartley, Pollock, de Kooning, Thiebaud, Johns, Sheeler, Hockney
- Collecting ruleOnly an artist's best period — refused flabby late work regardless of price
- MentorsLloyd Goodrich (Whitney), Doris Bry (O'Keeffe), Charles Buckley (St. Louis Art Museum)
- The houseBuilt in Hunts Point, WA to hold the collection — direct light controls, recessive architecture