Discoveries: A Library Blog

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.”

 

Photoarchive staff was involved in the publication of a special issue of The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy: “Re-viewing Digital Technologies and Art History."

Scholars celebrate photo archives for providing access to little-known works of art housed in private collections or in circulation on the art market. A feature of photo archives such as the Frick’s that is less often appreciated, however, is how comprehensively they document famous works of art on public view.

The story of the "overzealous" restoration of a family portrait as related by the painting's current owner illustrates how crucial this type of personal information is to the documentation of the Photoarchive.