The Devil and Dr. Barnes: Portrait of an American Collector

Rating:
Summary: Dr Barnes
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book between hilarious episodes of unending laughter and looking at the picture of the author who could stand to compile all of this! This is not a detailed biography of Dr. Barnes but rather a focussed smear of all letters he wrote to people who agitated him. It seems if you left him alone, he was a nice person, but he defended himself and his art views when attacked. How reasonable! There is helpful information to a researcher but the author seriously fails to develop a thesis for all the material he gathered. For instance, noting that Charles Laughton was a frequent house guest and not commenting on what Elsa Lancaster had to say about him. Not putting the photographs in context with the times and story, as most of the ones provided were posed or journalistic productions. No original theories to solve any mysteries were proposed and no, absolutely NO references to fine art or how any of these controveries documented in era correspondence affected, for example, Matisse's development of the mural in the lobby, or how many Soutine's were purchased, or the specific focus of the Renoir collection. All of this is non-existent in this book, which makes this book useful only to someone who is interested in character assassination of philanthropists and who like a good laugh at the expense of other people's immaturity and lack of emotional development in cricital areas.