During his lifetime, Alfred Barnes amassed an enormous collection of art, including impressionist paintings by Renior, VanGogh, and Cezanne. The collection, now owned by a foundation established to carry out the wishes prescribed in his will, is valued at over $6 billion. His will specified very specific terms regarding the location and display of the art, however due to financial difficulties at the foundation, a court battle is being fought by those interested in dismantling and selling the Barnes collection - breaking the demands of his will.

Barnes himself, souring early on the Philadelphia art establishment, drew up a detailed indenture, or trust document, to protect his collection after his death. Among its provisions: The paintings could not be lent, sold or rearranged. (Their floor-to-ceiling, nonchronological hanging is central to Barnes's ideas about the comparative, purely formal properties of art.) Shortly before he died, he gave nearby Lincoln University, a historically black college, the authority to nominate replacement trustees as the original board members died or retired--with an eye toward the university eventually taking full control of the foundation.