Discoveries in Photoarchive

Among the many images reproduced in the collection of the Frick Art Reference Library's Photoarchive is a stunning likeness of a vivacious young woman in a feathered hat. Thanks to the Library's photographic campaigns, the true identity of the sitter as well as the correct attribution of the portrait are part of the art-historical record.

Scott Calhoun, Acquisitions Assistant, looks back on some standout additions to the Frick Art Reference Library’s holdings in 2022. The library adds several thousand new books to its collections each year, including titles from all over the world that cover a vast range of topics.

This detailed sketch, based on George Wheeler’s topographical drawing of 1667, documents the appearance of the Parthenon just a few years before Venetian forces shelled the Acropolis during the Republic’s struggle to take the city from the Ottomans in 1687.

Helen Sanger (1923–2020), the Frick Art Reference Library’s first Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian, passed away in July at the age of 96. Her forty-seven-year career at the library shaped the institution profoundly, and her legacy lives on in many areas of its initiatives.

To continue our look back at the past one hundred years of the Frick Art Reference Library, Samantha Deutch, Digital Art History Lead, considers the library’s rich holdings of private collection catalogues—integral to our understanding of works of art and the history of collecting.

The theme of this extensive fresco cycle—which is comprised of more than 300 scenes—is human life as regulated by the heavens.

To enhance the discoverability of Photoarchive materials, the library launched a collaboration with the Center for Advanced Research of Spatial Information at Hunter College, City University of New York in 2014 to develop an interactive digital map that traces the movement of library staff and photographers as they traveled across the United States and recorded paintings and sculptures in private homes and little-known public collections.

Sumitra Duncan, Web Archiving Lead, explores technology at the Frick Art Reference Library, as part of our ongoing celebration of its hundredth anniversary. Technological innovations have been embraced since the library’s founding, a commitment that remains a vital part of its mission in the present day. In this post, we consider three examples: the telautograph, early art photography trips and a recent map charting the expeditions, and web archiving efforts.

In 1956, Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, traveled to Sansepolcro, Italy, to study and photograph works by Piero della Francesca (ca. 1415–1492), including a recently discovered fresco in the church of Santa Chiara (formerly Sant’Agostino).

In February 2021, the Frick Art Reference Library announced the completion of a massive, three-year project to digitize the library’s historic Photoarchive collection. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this initiative has made records and images for more than 175,000 works of art available in the Frick Digital Collections, NYARC Discovery, and the library’s online catalog.