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Frick Art Research Library

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Coordinates: 40°46′16″N 73°58′02″W / 40.77118°N 73.96735°W / 40.77118; -73.96735
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Frick Art Research Library
Map
Established1920 (1920)
Location10 East 71st Street, New York, NY 10021 (United States)
Coordinates40°46′16″N 73°58′02″W / 40.77118°N 73.96735°W / 40.77118; -73.96735
TypeLibrary
ManagerStephen J. Bury (Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian)
DirectorIan Wardropper (Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director)
ArchitectJohn Russell Pope
Websitehttp://www.frick.org/library
Entrance to the library

The Frick Art Research Library is the research arm of the Frick Collection. It is located at 10 East 71st Street (between Madison and Fifth Avenue) on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City.[1]

The library, founded in 1920, offers public access to materials on the study of art and art history in the Western tradition from the fourth to the mid-twentieth century. It is open to visitors 13 years of age or older and serves the greater art and art history research community through its membership in the New York Art Resources Consortium (which also includes the libraries of the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art).

History

[edit]

Helen Clay Frick founded the Frick Art Reference Library—renamed in 2024 to the Frick Art Research Library—in 1920 as a memorial to her father, Henry Clay Frick,[2] who had died in 1919.[3] Its first home was the bowling alley of the Henry Clay Frick House;[4] the library's staff worked in the house's basement.[5] In 1924, the library was relocated from the bowling alley to a one-story building at 6 East 71st Street next to the Frick residence; the new structure was designed by the architecture firm of Carrère and Hastings.[6] The library opened to the public in its current building on January 14, 1935.[7]

From 2021 to 2024, the library's reference services were temporarily relocated to 945 Madison Avenue.[8]

Collections

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The collections held by the Frick Art Research Library focus on art of the Western tradition from the 4th century to the mid-20th century, and chiefly include information about paintings, drawings, sculpture, prints, and illuminated manuscripts. Archival materials augment its research collections.[9] The library holds more than 228,000 monograph and 3,300 periodical titles. The collection includes several highlights: an auction catalog collection that contains approximately 90,000 items; the Frick Art Research Library Photoarchive which holds more than 1.2 million images including photographs and clippings of works of art; and the electronic resources collection which consists of more than 2,000 subscription databases and e-journals, as well as e-books.

Center for the History of Collecting

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From 2007 to 2021, the library was home to the Center for the History of Collecting. It operated with the goal of encouraging and sustaining research on the development of public and private art collections in Europe and the United States, from the early modern period to the present.[10][11][12]

The center supported a broad range of intellectual initiatives;[13] it organized and hosted a regular calendar of symposia, specialist lectures, and study days, and it contributed to undergraduate and graduate seminars taught in collaboration with local colleges. It also offered long and short term fellowships in the history of collecting, which attracted scholars researching diverse aspects of cultural history. In addition, the center created a digital archive of art collectors and dealers, and it collaborated on the creation of software that will aid in the study of visual history. The center had an active publications program and awarded a biennial book prize for excellent contributions to the history of collecting in America.

Under the leadership of founding director Inge Reist, the center had an advisory committee consisting of academics, collectors, librarians, archivists, and curators. In 2014, a Fellows Committee was introduced to garner financial support and to gather a dedicated community of individuals interested in engaging with collecting practices, especially through visits to the homes of private collectors.

Symposia, lectures, and publications

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The Cabinet of an Art Collector, by Hieronymus Francken II, 1621, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Belgium

The center organized the following symposia on the history of collecting:[14]

  • May 2019 – Collecting the Uncollectible: Earth and Site-Specific Sculpture[15]
  • April 2019 – When Michelangelo was Modern: The Art Market and Collecting in Italy, 1450–1650[16]
  • May 2018 – 150 Years of Collecting Impressionist Art: From the Avant-Garde to the Mainstream[17]
  • November 2017 – Have to Have It: Philadelphians Collect 1850-1930[18]
  • May 2017 – Sculpture Collecting and Display, 1600–2000[19]
  • March 2017 – Made in the USA: Collecting American Art during the Long Nineteenth Century[20]
  • May 2016 – America and the Art of Flanders: Collecting Paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Their Circles[21]
  • March 2016 – A Demand for Drawings: Five Centuries of Collecting[22]
  • May 2015 – Seen through the Collector's Lens: 150 Years of Photography[23]
  • January 2015 – El Greco Comes to America: The Discovery of a Modern Old Master[24]
  • May 2014 – The Americas Revealed: Collecting Colonial and Modern Latin American Art in the United States[25]
  • September 2013 – Going for Baroque: Americans Collect Italian Paintings of the 17th and 18th Centuries
  • March 2013 – Money for the Most Exquisite Things: Bankers and Collecting from the Medici to the Rockefellers[26]
  • March 2012 – The Dragon and the Chrysanthemum: Collecting Chinese and Japanese Art in America[27][28]
  • May 6, 2011 – Reflections across the Pond: British Models of Art Collecting and the American Response
  • November 2010 – A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Paintings in America[29]
  • March 2010 – The Collector's Choice: Art on Display in American Private Collections
  • May 2009 – Holland's Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals
  • March 2009 – The American Artist as Collector: From the Enlightenment to the Post-War Era
  • November 2008 – Collecting Spanish Art: Spain's Golden Age and America's Gilded Age[30][31]
  • April 2008 – Power Underestimated: American Women Art Collectors
  • February- March 2008 – Turning Points: Modern Art Collecting 1913–
  • May 19, 2007 – Turning Points in Old Masters Collecting, 1830– 1940

The center had an active publication program, issuing books that draw on the scholarship presented in the symposia. Many of these were published in association with Pennsylvania State University Press as volumes of The Frick Collection Studies on the History of Art Collecting in America. Titles include:

  • Reist, Inge Jackson., and Rosella Mamoli Zorzi, eds. Power Underestimated: American Women Art Collectors. Venezia: Marsilio, 2011.[32]
  • Reist, Inge Jackson., and José Luis Colomer, eds. Collecting Spanish Art: Spain's Golden Age and America's Gilded Age. New York: Frick Collection in Association with Centro De Estudios Europa Hispánica, Madrid, and Center for Spain in America, New York, 2012.
  • Reist, Inge, ed. British Models of Art Collecting and the American Response: Reflections Across the Pond. Burlington: Ashgate, 2014.
  • Quodbach, Esmée, ed. Holland's Golden Age in America: Celebrating the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014.[33][34][35]
  • Reist, Inge, ed. A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Paintings in America. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015.

The center also organized special events such as movie showings and lectures by scholars, artists, and collectors. For instance, in 2013, the center presented a lecture by artist and author Edmund de Waal, and in 2014, it hosted a conversation between Sir David Cannadine, Lord Rothschild, and Duke of Devonshire.[36]

Collaborations

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M. Knoedler & Co. (interior.), from the Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views

The center collaborated with academic institutions, including Barnard College, Columbia University, and New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, to offer graduate and undergraduate seminars and graduate workshops on the history of collecting. Alongside local museums, it also organized and participated in study days that contextualize major museum exhibitions within the history of collecting.[37] In addition, it facilitated oral and video histories of dealers and collectors who have helped to shape American collecting through the twentieth century.[38] In this effort, it partnered with the Archives of American Art on a two-year project to produce a series of oral histories of collectors.[39][40]

Digital scholarship

[edit]

The center published an archives directory,[41] which is still a growing index of collectors, dealers, auction houses and galleries, presented with historical notes and with the locations of their archival materials.[42] In 2011, the Art Libraries Society of North America awarded the archives directory its annual Worldwide Books Award for Electronic Resources, which recognizes achievements in digital librarianship or in curating visual resources.[43][44] The center collaborated with the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering to develop a digital platform that will facilitate the storage, comparison, and manipulation of digital images.

Prizes and fellowships

[edit]

The center granted a total of six short-term and long-term fellowships to pre- and post-doctoral scholars focusing on the history of collecting. It also awarded a biennial book prize for a distinguished publication on the history of collecting in America.[45] The book prize honorees:

  • 2017, Margaret K. Hofer and Roberta J. M. Olson, Making It Modern: The Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelma, New York: New-York Historical Society in association with D Giles Limited, 2015 (Prize shared with essayists Kenneth L. Ames, Barbara Haskell, Cynthia Nadelman, and Elizabeth Stillinger)
  • 2015, Janet Bishop, Cécile Debray, and Rebecca Rabinow, The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; New Haven: In association with Yale University Press, 2011 (Prize shared with essayists Isabel Alfandary, Emily Braun, Edward Burns, Claudine Grammont, Hélène Klein, Martha Lucy, Carrie Pilto, Gary Tinterow, Kate Mendillo and Robert Parker)
  • 2013, Jennifer Farrell, Get There First, Decide Promptly: The Richard Brown Baker Collection of Postwar Art, New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 2011 (Prize shared with essayists Thomas Crow, Serge Guilbaut, Jan Howard, Robert Storr, and Judith Tannenbaum)
  • 2011, Mary L. Levkoff, Hearst, the Collector, New York: Abrams, 2008.[46]
  • 2009, Julia Meech, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Art of Japan: The Architect's Other Passion, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001.[47]

List of chief librarians

[edit]

The position of chief librarian has been known as the Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian since 1990.[48] There have been seven chief librarians of the Frick Art Research Library:

References

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  1. ^ Ballard, Terry (2016). 50 Specialty Libraries of New York City: From Botany to Magic. Elsevier Science. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-08-100560-6.
  2. ^ Howell, Hannah Johnson (1951). "The Frick Art Reference Library". College Art Journal. 11 (2). [College Art Association, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.]: 123–126. doi:10.2307/772702. ISSN 1543-6322. JSTOR 772702. S2CID 192972368. Archived from the original on January 29, 2024. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
  3. ^ "Henry Clay Frick: A Leader in Industry and Finance a Philanthropist He Leaves $117,300,000 For Public Benefits". Hardware Dealers' Magazine. Vol. 52. December 1, 1919. p. 1277. ProQuest 612760334.
  4. ^ Shaw, Kurt (October 28, 2007). "Frick Legacy: Book Examines Life of Industrialist's Daughter". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. ProQuest 382473031.
  5. ^ "Henry Clay Frick Reference Library Nearing Completion: Collection Ultimately Will Contain Photographic Reproduction of Ancient and Modern Art Works". St. Louis Post – Dispatch. February 23, 1922. p. 18. ProQuest 578830122.
  6. ^ "New Frick Library Ready for Opening; 37,000 Photographs of Paintings and Drawings to Be Shown Today at Private Gathering". The New York Times. May 23, 1924. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 19, 2024. Retrieved February 19, 2024.
  7. ^ "New Frick Library Opened to Students; Art Reference Centre Resumes Service After Moving Into $850,000 Building". The New York Times. January 15, 1935. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 29, 2024. Retrieved February 14, 2024.
  8. ^ "The Frick moves to Madison Avenue". Apollo Magazine. 2021-04-27. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  9. ^ Archival materials
  10. ^ Gardner, Ralph (8 January 2013). "The Art of Collecting". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
  11. ^ Neyfakh, Leon (18 November 2009). "At the Frick, a Focus on the Collector as Art History". The Observer. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
  12. ^ "Homa Taj In Conversation with The Frick Collections' Inge Reist on Collectors & Merchant Princes". museumviews.com. Archived from the original on 2015-01-22. Retrieved 2015-07-13.
  13. ^ Muchnic, Suzanne (18 July 2010). "American art collectors ripe for study". LA Times.
  14. ^ James Tarmy (19 May 2014). "Frick Experts: Key to Understanding Current Art Bubble Lies in the Past". Bloomberg.com.
  15. ^ Video recording: "Collecting the Uncollectible: Earth and Site-Specific Sculpture"
  16. ^ Video recording: "When Michelangelo was Modern: The Art Market and Collecting in Italy, 1450–1650"
  17. ^ Video recording: "150 Years of Collecting Impressionist Art: From the Avant-Garde to the Mainstream"
  18. ^ Video recording: "Have to Have It: Philadelphians Collect 1850-1930"
  19. ^ Video recording: "Sculpture Collecting and Display, 1600–2000"
  20. ^ Video recording: "Made in the USA: Collecting American Art during the Long Nineteenth Century"
  21. ^ Video recording: "America and the Art of Flanders: Collecting Paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Their Circles"
  22. ^ Video recording: "A Demand for Drawings: Five Centuries of Collecting"
  23. ^ Video recording: "Seen through the Collector's Lens: 150 Years of Photography"
  24. ^ Video recording: "El Greco Comes to America: The Discovery of a Modern Old Master"
  25. ^ Video recording: "The Americas Revealed, Collecting Colonial and Modern Latin American Art in the United States"
  26. ^ Video recording: "Money for the Most Exquisite Things: Bankers and Collecting from the Medici to the Rockefellers"
  27. ^ Video recording: "The Dragon and the Chrysanthemum: Collecting Chinese and Japanese Art in America"
  28. ^ "Strong Sales and Attendance at Japanese Art Exhibitions And Events During Asia Week 2012". ArtfixDaily.
  29. ^ "Report on The FRICK's Symposium on Collecting Italian Renaissance Art". museumviews.com. Archived from the original on 2015-01-22. Retrieved 2015-07-21.
  30. ^ "Collecting Spanish Art: Spain's Golden Age and America's Gilded Age". ceeh.es.
  31. ^ Instituto Cervantes. "CVC. Coleccionismo norteamericano de arte y cultura españolas". cervantes.es.
  32. ^ MacLeod, Dianne Sachko (2013). "Project MUSE – The Henry James Review – Power Underestimated: American Women Art Collectors by Rosella Mamoli Zorzi (review)". Jhu.edu. 34 (1): E–1. doi:10.1353/hjr.2013.0006. S2CID 191344387.
  33. ^ "Books Received". maineantiquedigest.com.
  34. ^ Mascolo, Marco. Review of, Holland's Golden Age in America, ed. by E. Quodbach, Penn State University Press-The Frick Collection, 2014, in The Burlington Magazine, February 2015, p. 110
  35. ^ Bodick, Noelle (26 September 2014). "8 Sumptuous New Art Books to Read this Fall". Artspace.
  36. ^ "Edmund de Waal: "Start Again: Collections and Memory"". frick.org.
  37. ^ Video recordings are available for the study days on: The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Collecting Byzantine and Islamic Art.
  38. ^ "PRIVATE EYE". Artillery Magazine. 4 March 2015.
  39. ^ Archives of American Art. "Oral history interview with Tony Ganz, 2014 December 6". si.edu.
  40. ^ Archives of American Art. "Oral history interview with Robert E. Meyerhoff, 2014 December 11–12". si.edu.
  41. ^ Archives Directory for the center for the History of Collecting
  42. ^ "The Frick Art Reference Library Opens Two New Online Databases". College Art Association. 23 February 2015. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
  43. ^ "Worldwide Books Award for Electronic Resources". ARLIS/NA.
  44. ^ "Worldwide Books Award for Electronic Resources: Past Winners". ARLIS/NA.
  45. ^ Ignacio Villarreal. "Frick's Center for the History of Collecting in America to Award New $25,000 Biennial Book Prize". artdaily.com.
  46. ^ "CG: Frick Announces 2011 Book Prize Recipient (New York Spaces)". newyorkspacesmag.com.[permanent dead link]
  47. ^ Ignacio Villarreal. "Julia Meech First Winner of Frick's Biennial $25,000 Book Prize". artdaily.com.
  48. ^ a b "Remembering Helen Sanger, Frick's First Mellon Chief Librarian". The Frick Collection (Press release). August 5, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2024.
  49. ^ "Dr. Stephen J. Bury Appointed to the Post of Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian at the Frick Art Research Library". The Frick Collection (Press release). August 5, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2024.
  50. ^ "With Retirement of Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian Patricia Barnett, Frick Art Reference Library Marks 13 Years of Achievement". The Frick Collection (Press release). August 5, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2024.
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