Digital Archives

"A Comfortable Well Arranged Home": 100 Years of Henry Clay Frick's New York Residence

"A Comfortable Well Arranged Home": Drawing upon holdings in The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library Archives, this online exhibition marks the 100th anniversary of the completion of Henry Clay Frick’s New York residence at 1 East 70th Street, now The Frick Collection.  It tells the story of the house's planning, construction, and furnishing through a mix of photographs, legal documents, correspondence, invoices, diaries, and drawings.

All Things Dutch: Frick Family's Travels to the Netherlands and Acquisitions of Works by Rembrandt and Vermeer

"All Things Dutch": Through correspondence, scrapbooks, invoices, photographs, and diaries, this online exhibition documents travels by the Frick family to the Netherlands in 1896 and 1932, and highlights Henry Clay Frick's acquisition of works by Dutch artists Rembrandt and Vermeer.

Art Collecting Files of Henry Clay Frick, 1881-1925

Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), a Pittsburgh coke and steel industrialist, began forming his art collection in 1881, and continued to acquire works of art until his death in 1919. He bequeathed his New York City residence, furnishings, and art collection to be established as a public art gallery called The Frick Collection, which opened to the public in December 1935. This collection contains correspondence, invoices and financial records, catalogs, inventories, registers, notes, narrative descriptions, and printed material documenting the selection, purchase, exhibition, and disposition of art works in his collection from the years 1881 to 1925, with the bulk of the papers documenting purchases.

Childs Frick and Martha Frick album, 1885-1890

Album contains cabinet card portraits of Childs Frick (1883–1965) and his sister Martha Frick (1885–1891), chiefly by studio photographers in Pittsburgh and New York. Photographers include Napoleon Sarony, B. L. H. Dabbs, Gustave Aufrecht, F. Roseti, and B. J. Falk.

Christie's Art Sales Index, 1910-1945

Collection consists of three handwritten volumes that document painting sales of the Christie's London auction house from 1910 to 1945. The sales index is organized alphabetically by artist's name, with sale dates listed chronologically beneath the artist. Sales information includes title of work, size (in centimeters), date of sale, lot number, owner, buyer, and price paid (in British pounds). Buyers and sellers include institutions, art dealers, and individuals.

Clayton album, 1901

Album contains interior and exterior photographs of Henry Clay Frick’s Pittsburgh residence taken in 1901 by photographer Lewis Stephany. Interior views show the principal rooms in the house, often from several angles, with artwork visible in many photographs. Known works are identified whenever possible. Exterior photographs show the façade of the house, as well as views of the grounds and outbuildings on the property.

Clayton album, circa 1900

Consists of three small albums compiled by Henry Clay Frick’s son, Childs Frick. An enthusiastic amateur photographer, Childs took these photographs of the house and conservatory at his family’s Pittsburgh home around 1900. These views mostly depict rooms in the house, including the library, sitting room, breakfast room, parlor, and various bedrooms. Works of art are sometimes visible in these images, and known works are identified whenever possible. Additional views of the conservatory interior indicate the variety of plants grown there. Childs Frick’s mother, Adelaide H.C. Frick, and sister, Helen Clay Frick, can also be seen in these albums.

Films of the Frick Family and Friends

Films of the Frick Family and Friends: This brief compilation highlights motion pictures of the Frick family taken between 1916 and the 1920s, and represents the only known moving images of Henry Clay Frick, and the earliest films of his wife, children, and grandchildren.

France, Spain, and Italy album, 1909

Photographs taken by Helen Clay Frick during the Frick family's 1909 trip abroad. Cities visited include Paris, Biarritz, Madrid, Toledo, Seville, Granada, Marseille, Monaco, Florence, and Monte-Carlo. Family members appear in a handful of images, but the majority are views of landscapes, historic sites, architectural monuments, and outdoor activities such as skiing, horseback riding, and a hot air balloon launch.

France, Switzerland, and Germany album, 1905

Album contains photographs taken by Helen Clay Frick during her family's 1905 trip abroad. Images in the album were predominantly taken in France, Switzerland, and Germany, and include views of Versailles, Fontainebleau, Lake Geneva, Zurich, Baden-Baden, Munich, Regensburg, and Nuremburg. A large portion of the album is devoted to views of castles and palaces throughout France's Loire valley. People depicted in the album include Helen Clay Frick's father, Henry Clay Frick, her mother, Adelaide H.C. Frick, her brother, Childs Frick, and her governess, Marika Ogiz. A small section of images at the end of the album shows scenes around Clayton, the Frick family's Pittsburgh residence, and Eagle Rock, the family's country estate in Prides Crossing, Mass., which was under construction in 1905. Family employees James Elmore, a coachman, and Spencer Ford, a chef, occasionally appear in these photographs.

Frick New York Residence Construction Album, 1913

Album contains seventy-eight Wurts Brothers' photographs showing the construction of the Frick residence at 1 East 70th Street in New York City in 1913. The three-story Beaux-Arts mansion was designed by architect Thomas Hastings of the firm Carrère & Hastings for Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919). While the images primarily depict wide exterior shots of the construction from different angles, several focus on specific areas of the building, including the main entrance, the porte cochère, the interior courtyard, and the loggia (now known as the portico); there are also two interiors of the picture gallery and Adelaide Frick's bedroom. Some photographs also show Central Park and buildings on East 70th Street, East 71st Street, and Fifth Avenue.

Georgia, France, and England Album, 1910

Album compiled by Helen Clay Frick documenting travel to Augusta, Ga.; France; and England in 1910.  People depicted in the album include her parents, as well as friends Mary McNeal, John P. Grier, Dorothea and J. Horace Harding, and Marika Ogiz.  Views of Augusta include Butt Cottage (leased by the Fricks during their stay), Augusta Golf Club, and residences in the Summerville section of the city, as well as images of the Shiloh Orphanage and Strong Academy, an orphanage and school for African Americans.  Shortly after their trip to Augusta, Helen Clay Frick and her mother sailed to Europe where they visited Barbizon, Fontainebleau, Paris, Saint-Cloud, Versailles, and Ville d-Avray in France, and witnessed the funeral procession of King Edward VII held on 10 May 1910 in London.

Images of Artists Collection

Sixty-eight images from our Images of Artists Collection, containing cabinet cards, photographs, prints on paper, and postcards. The images show artists in formal portraits, at work in their studios, and with family and friends. The collection also includes some images of artists' studios and dwellings. The artists depicted were primarily born in the early to mid-nineteenth century, and include Daubigny, Fantin-Latour, Harpignies, Israëls, Leighton, Manet, Millais, Monet, and Ziem. 

Italy and Switzerland Album, 1912

Contains photographs taken by Helen Clay Frick during the latter portion of the Frick family's 1912 trip abroad. Chiefly depicts locations in Italy, with some images of Switzerland at the end. Cities visited include Naples, Capri, Pompeii, Rome, Viterbo, Orvieto, Perugia, Florence, and Venice.

One East 70th Street Album, 1927

This album contains the earliest known interior photographs of One East 70th Street, as photographed by Ira W. Martin in 1927, eight years after Henry Clay Frick's death. 

Photographs of Artists in Their Studios, circa 1885–1890

A collection of seventy-four albumen print photographs of artists in their Paris studios about 1885–1890. Frank W. Stokes (1858–1955), a New York artist known for his paintings of the polar regions, donated the collection to the Frick Art Reference Library in 1940. Mr. Stokes collected the photographs while he lived and studied in Paris from 1887–1892. It appears that some of the artists were fellow students, friends, and instructors of Mr. Stokes: he provided annotations on roughly one-third of the photographs, describing personal anecdotes and opinions regarding the artists. The artists pictured include Benjamin-Constant, Bonnat, Cormon, Courtois, Gérôme, Lefebvre, Munkácsy, Robert-Fleury, and Vuillefroy; and their American pupils, Bisbing, Bridgman, Dannat, Gay, Howe, Klumpke, McEwen, Melchers, Mosler, Stewart, and Weeks.

Registro Generale, 1810, 1827

Detailed 380-page manuscript inventory of the 18 rooms comprising Valadier's workshop in Rome in 1810. The inventory includes tools and utensils of various trades, particularly silversmiths, founders, gilders, bronze workers, ébénistes, and hardstone gem engravers. Also lists raw materials, models, drawings, and completed works found in the workshop. Contents are arranged by room.

Stanford White Collection

Collection of materials related to Stanford White (1853–1906), American architect, art collector and dealer, and partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White. The collection includes a 1942 typescript inventory of works of art at Box Hill, the former Stanford White estate in Long Island, as well as a scrapbook on works of art collected by Stanford White, including paintings, sculpture, rugs, tapestries, and other decorative arts. The scrapbook was compiled by Lawrence Grant White, son of Stanford White, and contains photographs and reproductions of works of art, clippings and excerpts from sales catalogs, and photographs of interiors, with many pages annotated by Lawrence Grant White.

The Frick Collection & Frick Art Reference Library Construction Photographs, 1933-1935

Photographs taken by Alfred Cook, 1933–35, document architect John Russell Pope's conversion of the Frick family's New York City residence at 1 East 70th Street into a museum, The Frick Collection, as well as the construction of a new Frick Art Reference Library building at 10 East 71st Street. Areas that would later be altered or demolished during construction are shown, including details of architectural ornaments, decorative stonework and woodwork, fireplace mantels, and lighting fixtures. Photographs also track the progress of new construction, including the Oval Room, the East Gallery, the Garden Court, the Music Room, the Boucher Room, and the Library building.

The Frick During World War II: Selections From the Archives

"The Frick During World War II: Selections from the Archives": This online exhibition presents maps, correspondence, photographs, and reports from the World War II era of our institutional history.  These items document international efforts to protect cultural treasures, wartime hardships experienced by the Library's associates in France and Italy, and steps taken to ensure the safety of artwork in The Frick Collection in the early 1940s.