Pinto Bros.

There was frost in the air last week but spring in the heart of Luigi Pinto, fruit dealer of No. 1827 South 16th St., Philadelphia. His three boys, Salvatore, 27; Angelo, 24; Biagio, 20, the apples of his fruit dealer's eye, were holding their first joint art exhibition at Philadelphia's swank Mellon Galleries. The exhibition opened with an announcement for which most modern artists would give four sound teeth: four of the Pinto Brothers' paintings have been sold to Dr. Albert C. Barnes, the Argyrol tycoon with the big modern art museum in Merion. Pa. Even better, the almost legendary Dr. Barnes has written the foreword to the Pintos' catalog, an honor he has conferred only once before and then upon Giorgio de Chirico. His Pinto purchases were Salvatore's "Beach Group" and "Beach Scene"; Angelo's "Landscape with Crucifix"; Biagio's "Landscape in Vence." His purchases were allowed to remain in the exhibition instead of being whisked away to his mysterious museum.

Albert Barnes won a scholarship at the

University of Pennsylvania and worked his way through college as a semiprofessional baseball player. He won his M.D. degree, saved enough money to go to Heidelberg where he helped pay his tuition as a singing waiter in a Braukeller. He was always more interested in chemistry than medicine. Back in the U. S. he stewed up something on the future Mrs. Barnes's kitchen range. It was Argyrol, the silver compound that serves many purposes of silver nitrate without its burn.

By the laws of most States, silver nitrate, Argyrol, or some other silver salt must be put in the eyes of newborn babes to disinfect the mucous membrane, prevent blindness. Its manufacture is very simple. For years Dr. Barnes turned out the world's supply of genuine Argyrol in a little ramshackle factory which had just eight employes: five white women, three colored men. He never employed more than 20 people. Argyrol leaves the factory in the form of minute crystals. Little drops of water, little grains of Argyrol, made the mighty Dr. Barnes (six ft. high, 200 Ib.) a multimillionaire. In 1929 he sold his Argyrol rights to Zonite Products Corp. for more millions. He can devote his entire time to his hobby, modern art.

In the Philadelphia suburb of Merion he has built (behind a loft. spite fence) a French Renaissance chateau that contains the greatest collection of modern art in the U. S., one of the greatest in the world. Dr. Barnes is no rich dunce with a fondness for pretty pictures. To occupy the spare time of his little factory staff he gave a course of lectures, assisted by his friend, Philosopher John Dewey. Since Artist William Glackens first got him interested in painting, he has traveled widely, read voraciously. His book The Art in Painting is a standard work on modern art. Dealers fear and respect him. Dr. Barnes can make the reputation of any artist by buying his work.

Albert C. Barnes's desire to help humanity is constantly checked by his ungovernable temper. He established the Barnes Foundation with an endowment of $6,000.-ooo to give lectures, teach esthetics and art appreciation, then quarreled with almost everybody connected with it. When Merion realtors started a suburban subdivision near his 12-acre estate he threatened to give all his pictures to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and turn the buildings into a Negro "culture center."

For a stranger, getting in to see Dr. Barnes's pictures is like getting into Tibet. Only the most hand-picked of visitors are admitted. Often on Sunday mornings Dr. Barnes, funereally dressed, enters and delivers a short lecture on his paintings. Visitors are then turned loose in the gallery, to wander about by themselves. One ill chosen comment is enough to cause its author to be forcibly ejected. Dr. Barnes hates reporters, refuses to be interviewed. To the editors of FORTUNE his secretary wrote: "When journalists, eager to exploit us to the amusement of a large public, have disregarded our wishes in this respect, our huskies beat them up as soon as they appear on our grounds."

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