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The Barnes Foundation Announces 2024–25 Extended Holiday Hours

Mickalene Thomas: All About Love exhibition, tours & Museum Store Sunday on December 1

Philadelphia, PA, October 23, 2024—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).

“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 focused on the work of pioneering American artist Mickalene Thomas,” says Thom 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.”

Holiday hours at the Barnes (2025 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia) are listed below:

NOVEMBER 2024

The Garden Restaurant is open 11 am–3 pm, with last seating at 2:30 pm. Reflections Café 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
  • Sunday, December 1: 10 am–5 pm
    PECO Free First Sunday Family Day: Reflections
    Museum Store Sunday at the Barnes Shop! Admission to the Shop is free. 20% off all full-priced merchandise, online and in-store—just mention Museum Store Sunday at checkout.
  • Monday, December 2: 11 am–5 pm (normal hours)

November Tours:

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
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.

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 gift a Barnes class, 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.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION
Deirdre Maher, Director of Communications
215.278.7160, press@barnesfoundation.org
Online press office: barnesfoundation.org/press