Tag Archives: The Barnes Foundation

The Barnes Foundation Hosts Their 5th Slow Art Day

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For Slow Art Day 2024 – their 5th Slow art Day, the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia invited visitors to look slowly at five artworks from their collection:

  • Cezanne’s Card Players
  • Soutine’s Flayed Rabbit
  • Renoir’s Before The Bath
  • Claude Monet’s The Studio Boat
  • Picasso’s Young Woman Holding a Cigarette
Paul Cézanne. The Card Players (Les Joueurs de cartes), 1890–1892, Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, BF564.
Chaim Soutine. Flayed Rabbit (Le Lapin écorché), c. 1921, Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, BF333. © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Before the Bath (Avant le bain), c. 1875, Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, BF9.
Claude Monet. The Studio Boat (Le Bateau-atelier), 1876, Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, BF730.
Pablo Picasso. Young Woman Holding a Cigarette (Jeune femme tenant une cigarette), 1901, Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, BF318. © 2024 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

After looking slowly at these artworks, the many participants went to the Kean Family Classroom for an opportunity to talk together. This is the moment that Slow Art Day becomes community – a time to reflect, see through each other’s eyes, and create both intimacy and joy.

Led by Michael Williamson, Senior Instructor in Adult Education, the discussion among the participants was indeed so good – people felt so connected to the art and to each other – that it went way beyond the scheduled time allotted for it.

Giving expression to the exuberance that everyone felt, Williamson called the event a “resounding success.”

Below you will find a photo from the conversation – and their very cool handout (feel free to copy!).

Slow Art Day participants engaging in discussion in the Kean Family Room

The Barnes Foundation Slow Art Day hand-out.

In terms of marketing, the Barnes Foundation promoted Slow Art Day on their website, Instagram, and Facebook.

At Slow Art Day HQ we get inspired by these reports that come in from around the world – from big museums, and small, to highly influential organizations like The Barnes.

The Barnes, which has a long history of fostering slow looking at art, has become a great leader in our global movement and we look forward to seeing what they come up with for 2025, which also happens to be their centennial year.

– Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl

Retreat with the Global Slow Art Day Team

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We just finished our first ever Slow Art Day team retreat with founder Phyl Terry (U.S.) and global team members Ashley Moran (U.S.), Jessica Jane Nocella (Italy), and Johanna Bokedal (Norway). We came together in New York and Philadelphia for nine days of slow art, friendship, and fun.

We will be posting several reports highlighting our time together at:

  • MoMA (New York)
  • The Met (New York)
  • The Whitney (New York)
  • The Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia)
  • The Philadelphia Museum of Art
  • Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens

Like happens all over the world with Slow Art Day, looking slowly deepened our ability to see from multiple perspectives, to love art even more, and to create closer bonds of friendship and community with each other.

In the reports that follow, we’ll share what we saw, what we learned, and the simple slow looking algorithm we used at each venue. 

Highlights include our coordinated dresses at MoMA, our long conversation and slow looking with the Director of Education at the Barnes Foundation (and a very interesting idea he floated), and our time with the team at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

Phyl, Jessica Jane, Ashley, and Johanna at MoMA

We are sad to end our retreat.

The good news, though, is we are looking forward to visiting other participating Slow Art Day institutions in future years around the world. 

And, we are even beginning to put together a global Slow Art conference in 2025 in partnership with a great art museum (more on that in the next several months).

With much love,

Phyl, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Johanna

P.S. Our longtime global coordinator Maggie Freeman, who is studying for a PhD in Islamic Art & Architecture at MIT, could not join us for this one, but we look forward to future summer retreats with her.