Discoveries: A Library Blog

Alfred Cook's "Progress Photographs"

January 4, 2019

Black-and-white photograph of a light fixture.
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.”

Looking Closely

July 28, 2017

Black and white photograph of a monumental wall tomb featuring several figures and decorative reliefs.

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.

Mind the Antlers

May 4, 2017

Sketch of deer antlers.

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.

Art and Advertising

November 30, 2016

An advertisement for a painting of a landscape featuring a settlement of Native Americans.

Perhaps one third of Photoarchive reproductions are cut from publications, including catalogs, books, newspapers, and magazines. This advertisement sheet for a painting possibly by Ralph Albert Blakelock (see illustration) was printed in 1942. As the sheet describes, the dealer Americana Arts is offering a landscape with teepees that might or might not be a good deal:

Know Your Meme

May 6, 2016

Painting of the corner of an apartment featuring a blue sofa, a side table with a lamp, and walls covered with framed paintings.

Interior of the Artist’s Apartment, made sometime after 1910 by the American painter and watercolorist Walter Gay, shows a narrow view of a sitting area in Walter and his wife Matilda’s Paris apartment at 11 Rue de l'Université, where the couple had moved in May 1909.

Pages