Independent Arts News Reporting The Barnes Foundations Announces 2024-2025 Extended Holiday Hours
Reported: Wednesday, November 25, 2024.
Pictured Above: Boxed and ready for gifting, this set includes three pairs of calf-length socks inspired by Mickalene Thomas’s Tete De Femme series. Jacquard knit captures details of the original artwork, resulting in a playful take on the artist’s use of collage. Photo Credit: Mickalene Thomas,
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love exhibition, tours & Museum Store Sunday on December 1 offering shopping discounts, plus a Black Friday special of 15% off on 4-week online classes
NEWSROOM POST: PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia, PA – The Barnes Foundation has announced special extended hours between the Thanksgiving and New Year’s holidays, opening as early as 9 am on select days. As always, general admission tickets are valid for two consecutive days.
The eighth annual Museum Store Sunday at the Barnes Shop will take place on Sunday, December 1, which is also PECO Free First Sunday Family Day. The Shop will offer a 20% discount on all full-priced merchandise, online and in the store—just mention Museum Store Sunday at checkout.
During the Barnes’s operating hours, the Garden Restaurant will be open 11 am–3 pm, with last seating at 2:30 pm, and Reflections Café will be open 11 am–4 pm.
The Barnes will be closed on Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 28), Christmas Eve (Tuesday, December 24), Christmas Day (Wednesday, December 25), New Year’s Eve (Tuesday, December 31), and New Year’s Day (Wednesday, January 1).
Pictured Above: A major survey chronicling Thomas’s vibrant, rhinestone-adorned paintings. New York–based artist Mickalene Thomas’s critically acclaimed and extensive body of work spans painting, collage, print, photography, video and immersive installations. With influences ranging from 19th-century painting to popular culture, Thomas’s art is characterized by spectacularly staged, rhinestoned, large-scale painted tableaux and bold, intimate compositions, decisively foregrounding Black femininity in abundant realms of visual pleasure, agency, and kinship. This major survey publication further affirms Thomas’s status as a key figure of contemporary art. It features notable works that are arranged in thematic chapters throughout the book. The book also features Mickalene Thomas in conversation with Hayward Gallery chief curator Rachel Thomas and essays by Claudia Rankine, Darnell L. Moore, Ed Schad, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Renée Mussai, and Christine Kim that cover Thomas’s distinct visual vocabulary, drawing on themes of love and intergenerational female empowerment as well as tenets of Black feminist theory. Mickalene Thomas (born 1971) is an international, award-winning, multidisciplinary artist whose work has yielded instantly recognizable and widely celebrated aesthetic languages within contemporary visual culture. She is known for her elaborate portraits of Black women composed of rhinestones, acrylic and enamel. Mickalene Thomas: All About Love will be on view at the Barnes Foundation from October 20, 2024 to January 12, 2025. Photo Credit: Barnes Foundation.
“We have extended our hours this holiday season to offer more opportunities for visitors to explore the collection and Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, the only East Coast presentation of the first major international tour focus on the work of pioneering American artist Mickalene Thomas,” says Them Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President. “The holidays are a special time for reconnecting with friends and family, and what better way than through meaningful, shared experiences with art? We invite guests to take in the wonders of the Barnes and join a tour, take a class, dine in the restaurant, and shop for unique holiday gifts in the Barnes Shop.”
Pictured Above: A Gallery at the Barnes Foundation. Photo Credit: BarnesFoundation.org.
HOLIDAY HOURS AT THE BARNES ARE:
-November 2024
The Garden Restaurant will be open from 11am – 3 pm, with the last seating at 2:30 pm. & Reflections Cafe is open 11 am – 4 pm.
Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 28: Closed
Friday, November 29: 9 am – 5 pm
Saturday, November 30: 9 am – 5 pm
-Monday, December 2: 11 am – 5 pm (normal hours)
NOVEMBER TOURS
– Exhibition Tour: Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, Daily
– Private Exhibition Tour: Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, Daily
– Highlights Tour, Daily
– Private Collection Tours, Daily
– Private Collection Tour: Favorite Artists, Daily
– November Spotlight Tour: Dreams of Arcadia: Cézanne, Gaugin, Matisse, Daily
DECEMBER 2024–JANUARY 2025
The Garden Restaurant is open 11 am–3 pm, with last seating at 2:30 pm. Reflections Café is open 11 am–4 pm.
– CHRISTMAS EVE, Tuesday, December 24: CLOSED
– CHRISTMAS DAY, Wednesday, December 25: CLOSED
– Thursday, December 26: 9 am–5 pm
– Friday, December 27: 9 am–5 pm
– Saturday, December 28: 9 am–5 pm
– Sunday, December 29: 9 am–5 pm
– Monday, December 30: 9 am–5 pm
– NEW YEAR’S EVE, Tuesday, December 31: CLOSED
– NEW YEAR’S DAY, Wednesday, January 1: CLOSED
DECEMBER TOURS
– Exhibition Tour: Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, Daily
– Private Exhibition Tour: Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, Daily
– Highlights Tour, Daily
– Private Collection Tours, Daily Private Collection Tour: Favorite Artists, Daily
– December Spotlight Tour: Dreams of Arcadia: Cézanne, Gaugin, Matisse, Daily
Pictured Above:Mickalene Thomas. Afro Goddess Looking Forward, 2015.Rhinestones, acrylic, and oil on wood panel. Photo Credit: 2024 Mickalene Thomas..
EXHIBITION
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love October 20, 2024–January 12, 2025 (on view in the Roberts Gallery)
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love is the first major international tour focused on the work of pioneering artist Mickalene Thomas (American, b. 1971), whose influences range from 19th- century painting to popular culture. Co-organized by the Hayward Gallery, London, and The Broad, Los Angeles, and in partnership with the Barnes and Les Abattoirs, Musée–Frac Occitanie Toulouse, All About Love is being shown as a series of independent presentations, with further venues to be confirmed.
Curated by independent curator and scholar Renée Mussai, the Barnes presentation of All About Love showcases a selection of vivid and multifaceted artworks—paintings, collage, photography, video, and site-specific installation—that celebrates Thomas’s distinctive artistic practice from the late 2000s to the present day. Her work is characterized by spectacularly staged, rhinestoned, large-scale painted tableaux and bold, intimate compositions, decisively foregrounding Black femininity in abundant realms of visual pleasure, agency, and kinship. Whether in imaginative dialogue with canonical works from the history of art or playfully reckoning with popular culture, Thomas’s exuberant portraits offer an empowered vision of beauty and desire, formulated through a sensual, Black feminist lens.
More information & related programs (HERE).
ARCHIVES EXHIBITION
The Battle of the Bathers Through September 15, 2025 (on view on the lower level).
In 1933, Dr. Albert C. Barnes purchased The Large Bathers, the crown jewel in his collection of more than five dozen works by French painter Paul Cézanne. However, just four years later, a public feud erupted when a fellow Philadelphia art institution acquired its own version of the Bathers. Drawing on archival letters, clippings, and photographs, this exhibition traces Dr. Barnes’s purchase, explores the clash with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and exposes the simmering tensions that set the stage for the Battle of the Bathers.
The exhibition is also available to view online with additional content and transcriptions of handwritten items.
BARNES SHOP & THE GIFT OF THE BARNES
The Barnes Shop lets you bring art into your everyday life in a variety of forms, from books and media to fine handcrafted gifts and accessories. This gift-giving season, share items inspired by the Barnes collection and our special exhibitions, and works by exciting contemporary makers. Explore all offerings in the 2024–25 Barnes Shop catalogue and order custom print reproductions of works from the Barnes from the Print Shop. You can also, general admission tickets, or a Barnes membership—a gift that keeps on giving year-round. All proceeds directly support the Barnes’s educational mission.
DINING
Philadelphia’s renowned Constellation Culinary Group offers delicious fare at the Barnes. Lunch, brunch, and cocktails are available at the Garden Restaurant from Thursday to Monday, 11 am–3 pm. Reservations are strongly encouraged; reserve on Resy. Last seating is at 2:30 pm. Located in the Annenberg Court, Reflections Café is a relaxing spot to enjoy lunch and small bites. Choose from freshly made seasonal salads, sandwiches, and desserts as well as assorted beverages including wine and craft beer. Open Thursday to Monday, 11 am–4 pm. No reservations or admission tickets are required to dine at the Barnes, and members receive a 10% discount.
ABOUT THE BARNES FOUNDATION
The Barnes Foundation is a nonprofit cultural and educational institution that shares its unparalleled art collection with the public, organizes special exhibitions, and presents programming that fosters new ways of thinking about human creativity. The Barnes collection is displayed in ensembles that integrate art and objects from across cultures and time periods, overturning traditional hierarchies and revealing universal elements of human expression. Home to one of the world’s finest collections of impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern paintings—including the largest groups of paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne in existence—the Barnes brings together renowned canvases by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, and Vincent van Gogh, alongside African, Asian, ancient, medieval, and Native American art as well as metalwork, furniture, and decorative art.
The Barnes was established by Dr. Albert C. Barnes in 1922 to “promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts and horticulture.” A visionary collector and pioneering educator, Dr. Barnes was also a fierce advocate for the civil rights of African Americans, women, and the economically marginalized. Committed to racial equality and social justice, he established a scholarship program to support young Black artists, writers, and musicians who wanted to further their education. Dr. Barnes became actively involved in the Harlem Renaissance, during which he collaborated with philosopher Alain Locke and Charles S. Johnson, the scholar and activist, to promote awareness of the artistic value of African art.
Since moving to Philadelphia in 2012, the Barnes has expanded its commitment to diversity, inclusion, and social justice, teaching visual literacy in groundbreaking ways; investing in original scholarship relating to its collection; and enhancing accessibility throughout every facet of its programs.
The Barnes Foundation is situated in Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape people. Read our Land Acknowledgment.
Hours and ticket prices are listed on our website.
