Pew Center for Arts and Heritage moves to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia

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For 19 years, the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, one of the Philadelphia region’s largest arts funders, was administered by the University of the Arts. That ended abruptly last year when the university suddenly closed with little warning.

The Pew has struck a new partnership with the Barnes Foundation, which will be handling the center’s business operations and taking over its lease at 1608 Walnut St. in Philadelphia’s Center City neighborhood. The staff of the Pew Center will become employees of the Barnes.

When Pew Center’s parent organization Pew Charitable Trusts created the Center in 2005 by combining several arts initiatives under one umbrella, it always intended the center to be partnered with an administering organization.

“The partnership has the potential for more than just being an administrative overseer that takes care of our finances, our IT, our HR, our grant payments and our contracts,” said director Paula Marincola. “It is amplifying the impact of the thought leadership work that the center has done for many years and that the Barnes does.”

The Barnes Foundation will not be involved in the Pew Center’s granting process, which is done by a selected committee of professionals for the cultural sector. The Foundation will also not be eligible to apply for Pew Center grants as long as it is an administrative partner.

The Pew Center has granted about $200 million to Philadelphia-area artists and art organizations since it formed in 2005.

Barnes Executive Director and President Thom Collins said the partnership will allow the Barnes and Pew to closely collaborate on expanding cultural and educational initiatives.

“At the same time we’re supporting the center’s staff and business operations, we will be devising new ways to work together,” he said, “including collaborative programming, community convening and knowledge sharing in the interest of growing and evolving our already robust cultural sector.”

In addition to distributing grants, the Pew Center has initiatives for collaborations and fostering creative leadership in the cultural sector. So does the Barnes, which was founded on an educational mission.

“We, over the years, have done many convenings around cultural practice. The Barnes does that work as well,” she said. “The potential for the two organizations to get together on this work and increase its impact for the cultural sector will be greater than the sum of the parts.”

The partnership will likely be the last major effort by Marincola at the Barnes. She is stepping down in October. Marincola has been the head of the Center for 17 years and was planning to end her tenure when the unexpected closing of UArts created an organizational upheaval.

With the Barnes partnership established, Marincola can now contemplate the next chapter of her career.

“I have loved every minute of the ride,” she said of leading the center that, in many ways, shaped Philadelphia’s cultural sector. “The good, the bad, all of it. It’s just been extraordinary.”

The Pew-Barnes partnership highlights the Barnes Foundation’s growing ambitions, as it is also the administrator of the new Calder Gardens, a museum and center dedicated to the work of artist Alexander Calder that will open across the street from the Barnes on the Parkway in September.

Collins said the Barnes will play a much more active role in the daily operations of the Calder Gardens than the Pew Center, such as hiring staff and administering curation.

He said the two new administrative roles signal an expanded role for the Barnes Foundation.

“I’m happy to say that we’re a healthy organization and we’re also an ambitious organization,” Collins said. “We always ask ourselves in our strategic conversations: ‘What more can we as an institution be doing in support of Philadelphia’s artists and arts institutions?’”