Archives

Detail from a newspaper clipping of a woman seated at a desk in front of large bookshelves
Locating Rose H. Lorenz in the Frick Archives

The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library Archives contain records of countless significant individuals in the history of art and art collecting. Recent research brought to light Rose H. Lorenz, an early twentieth-century gallery and auction house professional who worked with Henry Clay Frick and defied expectations for women in the field.

Oil painting of a woman crowning a man with a flower crown in a lush green landscape
Picturing Paradise: T. S. Eliot, John Milton, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard
On May 3, 1947, the poet T. S. Eliot delivered a lecture at the Frick on John Milton’s Paradise Lost. In honor of the centenary of the publication of Eliot’s highly influential poem The Waste Land, explore the surprising connections between this famous work, Milton’s Edenic verse, and the lush forests of Fragonard’s Progress of Love.
A military parade along Fifth Avenue, with an American flag and leafy garlands in the foreground
"Welcome Home Heroes": A Banner Discovery
A massive banner discovered during preparations for the museum’s temporary move to Frick Madison, was the key to finally identify a group of uncaptioned photographs in the Frick Archives.
Black-and-white photograph of an elegant young couple, the man and woman both looking to their right
Portraits from a Marriage: Photographing the Fricks
Henry Clay Frick and Adelaide Howard Childs were married one hundred and forty years ago this year, in December 1881. Recent research into portraits of the newly married couple sheds light on the early days of the Fricks' married life.
Black-and-white photograph of a light fixture.
Alfred Cook's "Progress Photographs"
From 1931 to 1935, Alfred Cook, a footman to the Frick family, documented the transformation of the Frick’s Gilded Age mansion into a public art gallery and research center in a series of evocative “progress photographs.”
video still of Sally Brazil looking at book next to a table clock
One Hundred Years at the Library: Treasures from the Frick Archives

Take a dive into the Frick Archives! Sally Brazil, Barbara G. Fleischman Associate Chief Librarian for Archives and Records Management, takes us on a tour of three decorative arts–related collections housed in the Frick Art Reference Library: the research archive of Winthrop Kellogg Edey, a noted collector of clocks and watches; the inventory of the Italian silversmith Luigi Valadier; and the archive of Bernard and Lydia Starr, central figures in the collecting of Wedgwood ceramics.

Deena Engel, Glenn Wharton: "Artist Archives Initiative: New Research Models for Contemporary Artists"
Deena Engel and Glenn Wharton discuss the Artist Archives Initiative at New York University (NYU), a collaboration to develop public resources about contemporary artists beginning with David Wojnarowicz and Joan Jonas. The initiative responds to a growing need for art world professionals and academic researchers to work with artists in building information resources to aid scholarship, conservation, and future exhibition of their work.
Link to video of Frick Family film excerpts
Films of the Frick Family and Friends

In 1916 and 1918, Norman McClintock was invited to film the Frick family at their country estate, Eagle Rock, in Prides Crossing, Mass. These films depict the Fricks and their friends in a variety of leisure activities such as card playing, golfing, and having tea. They represent the only known moving images of Henry Clay Frick, and the earliest moving images of his wife, children, and grandchildren.