| As a research center, the Frick Art Reference Library is first and foremost committed to serving scholars gathering information for their own publications. Nonetheless, over the course of its history, the Library staff has also been pro-active in publishing much-needed research tools that independent scholars and academics are rarely inclined to produce themselves.
Original Index to Art Periodicals
The Original Index to Art Periodicals (1983) is a compendium of references to journal articles on a myriad of subjects, compiled by Library staff during the 1950s and 1960s. Many of the articles cited reside in journals that are not indexed by major art bibliographies.
Spanish Artists from the Fourth to the Twentieth Century:
A Critical Dictionary
The Frick Art Reference Library released Spanish Artists from the Fourth to the Twentieth Century: A Critical Dictionary online in 2010. The database contains bibliographies, alternative names, and basic biographical information for more than 5,000 Spanish artists. Entries cross-reference materials from the Frick’s internationally-known photoarchive collection. The Dictionary links to other resources, such as Arcade and WorldCat, allowing researchers to easily locate items held at institutions worldwide related to a particular artist.
Since its original publication as a four-volume set, Spanish Artists has been widely acclaimed not only as a useful reference work, but also for the scholarship reflected in its comprehensive review of scholarly opinion about numerous anonymous masters whose artistic identities have been the subject of debate for decades.
Montias Database of 17th Century Dutch Art Inventories
In 1999, the Library acquired an exceptional research tool, the Montias Database of 16th and 17th Century Inventories of Dutch Art Collection. This unique database was a donation to the Library by its creator, the late Yale University Professor of Economics John Michael Montias (1928–2005), author of numerous books on the art and art collecting of The Netherlands during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The database records information about more than 51,000 works of art mentioned in nearly 1,300 inventories held in the Amsterdam City Archives, making it a goldmine of primary documentation on collecting patterns during Holland’s Golden Age.
Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America
The Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America was published in 2010. The database is a pioneering resource created to help researchers locate primary source material about American collectors, dealers, agents, and advisors and the repositories that hold these records. The database is a work in progress that is regularly updated with information contributed by both institutions and individuals.
|
