Chemist, Art Collector, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist. He is remembered as an American self-made millionaire living in the first half of the 20th century. Born into poverty, his life is truly a "rags to riches" story. As a chemist, he helped formulate the antiseptic Argyol, which is a mild silver protein antimicrobial compound used on mucous membranes in the human body to fight infections. It was marketed as a cure for gonorrhea in adults and to prevent gonorrheal blindness in newborn infants. This was an acceptable practice before modern-day antibiotics. He also was a collector of valuable art, the Barnes Foundation Galleries, which was in Merion, Pennsylvania. William James Glacken, who was a high school classmate of Barnes from Philadelphia's Central High School, and Alfred Henry Mauer were commissioned artists that advised him on art. After the advice, Barnes enjoyed traveling to Europe selecting his own paintings; he purchased hundreds of paintings starting in 1922 and continuing his collection throughout his lifetime. A couple of times, Glacken was sent to Europe on shopping trips for paintings. The Barnes collection is America's greatest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist art, which is conservatively worth 25 million dollars and including 69 Cezannes, 60 Matisses, 44 Picassos, and other priceless works from Renoir, Rousseau, Modigliani, Soutine, Manet, Monet, Seurat, Degas, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. The collection also contains African art and masks, Native American pottery and jewelry, Pennsylvania German furniture, American avant-garde paintings, and wrought-iron pieces. In 1912 Barnes sat for a portrait drawn by Glackens with conte crayon on tan-colored wove paper. The third son of Jesse Barnes and his Pennsylvania German wife Lydia, Barnes had an excellent public school education. His father had several jobs from being a butcher to working for newspaper. Barnes struggled to obtain a college education, but did by tutoring, playing semiprofessional baseball and boxing, while attending college and then the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. He graduated in 1892, finished an intern program, became a chemist at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1894, he traveled to Germany to study advanced chemistry for a total of two years at the University of Berlin. He returned from Germany with a colleague, Dr. Herman Hille, who devised the formula for Argyrol. Argyol was never patented as the formula would had to be submitted with the application; Hille was the only person who knew the complex formula. Barnes made a fortune with this product after purchasing Hille's partnership including the formula in 1907. He formed the pharmaceutical company, A. C. Barnes, with the marketing idea of leaving out the "middle man" and selling directly to physicians. In 1929, he sold this company for a healthy profit to Zonite Products Corporation, with the understanding that Barnes controlled the trademark name of Argyol to ensure no imitations on the market. The drug is still being sold over-the-counter in some countries. After marrying a upper class lady, Laura Leggett, on June 4, 1901, he built four years later a mansion with a twelve-acre garden in Merion. The grounds became to be known as the "Barnes Arbortum," which housed a collection of 2,500 plants and a library with rare gardening books. After an attempt to develop a scholarship program at the University of Pennsylvania in 1926, Barnes decided to continue the education foundation on his own. Several educational endowments were awarded; one was to an employee's widow with five children and another to a local physician needing to travel to Paris to study a specialty. He became a real estate developer, gave to charities, donated to African American colleges and supported the musical community. In April of 1926, the Republic of France awarded him the Cross of the Legion of Honor. He published about six books about his art collection with black and white photos, there has never been published a catalog with colored photographs of the Barnes' art collection. On July 24, 1951 on a rural road, Barnes ran a red light while driving his Cadillac; he was rammed by a tractor-trailer truck and killed instantly. His dog Fidele, which was with him in the car, was so badly injured that law enforcement shot him at the scene. After Barnes' death, his wishes for the Barnes Foundation were declared in his will. Unfortunately, there was some mismanagement of the collection, reinterpretation of the will, underhanded maneuvers by politicians and a legal squabbling, which went on for decades with cost of millions of dollars in legal fees. According to a news release, a 2004 court case allowed the breaking of Barnes' will, which stated Barnes private collection was to stay in Merion, about 8 miles from downtown Philadelphia. The collection was to be shared with the public but in reality it was only opened for the public on Tuesday during the day nine to five, and even then certain people were not allowed in the building. In 2010 the Foundation's facility in Merion was closed as the new "Barnes on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway" was under construction in downtown Philadelphia; the opening was to the public in 2012 at $35 per person. The cash to do this project was from donations, taxes and other sources. There have been many articles and books written on this subject including Howard Greenfeld's 2006 "The Devil and Dr. Barnes: Portrait of an American Art Collector" and in 2003, "Art Held Hostage" by John Anderson. There is a controversial 2009 film "The Art of the Steal" which tells the Barnes' collection saga.