Posted Art Knowledge News: 27 Feb 2012
The Frick Collection is a
not-for-profit educational institution originally founded by Henry Clay Frick
(1849-1919), the Pittsburgh coke and steel industrialist. In 1913, construction
began on Henry Frick’s New York mansion at Seventieth Street and Fifth Avenue,
designed by Carrère and Hastings to accommodate Mr. Frick’s paintings and other
art objects. The house cost $5,000,000, but from its inception, took into
account Mr. Frick’s intention to leave his house and his art collection to the
public. Mr. Frick died in 1919 and in his will, left the house and all of the
works of art in it together with the furnishings (“subject to occupancy by Mrs.
Frick during her lifetime”) to become a gallery called The Frick Collection. He
provided an endowment of $15,000,000 to be used for the maintenance of the
Collection and for improvements and additions. After Mrs. Frick's death in
1931, family and trustees of The Frick Collection began the transformation of
the Fifth Avenue residence into a museum and commissioned John Russell Pope to
make additions to the original house, including two galleries (the Oval Room
and East Gallery), a combination lecture hall and music room, and the enclosed
courtyard. In December 1935 The Frick Collection opened to the public. In 1977,
a garden on Seventieth Street to the east of the Collection was designed by
Russell Page, to be seen from the street and from the pavilion added at the
same time to accommodate increasing attendance at the museum. This new
Reception Hall was designed by Harry van Dyke, John Barrington Bayley, and G.
Frederick Poehler.
Two additional galleries were opened on the lower level of
the pavilion to house temporary exhibitions. The nearby Frick Art Reference
Library was founded in 1920 to serve “adults with a serious interest in art,”
among them scholars, art professionals, collectors, and students. The Library’s
book and photograph research collections relate chiefly to paintings, drawings,
sculpture, and prints from the fourth to the mid-twentieth centuries by
European and American artists. Known internationally for its rich holdings of
auction and exhibition catalogs, the Library is a leading site for collecting
and provenance research. Archival materials and special collections augment the
research collections with documents pertaining to the history of collecting art
in America and of Henry Clay Frick’s collecting in particular.
The Frick
Collection developed the “Art of Observation” training course, initially for
medical students, but now used by police, security and defense personnel
throughout the USA. Using works of art to train students in observation
techniques proved so effective that enquiries were received from as far as way
as London’s Metropolitan Police Force. Visit the museum’s website at … www.frick.org
Footnote:
The above post is obvioulsy not about books but The Frick is one of my favourite places in NYC, don't miss it if you are there, and I couldn't resist adding this piece this am.
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