Frick Art Research Library

In this installment of our series looking back at the past century of the Frick Art Reference Library through significant objects in its collections, Stephen J. Bury, Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian, explores three items connected to the career of the Futurist poet and artist Vladimir Mayakovsky and his involvement in the turbulent politics of early twentieth-century Russia.

Celebrating one hundred years of the Frick Art Reference Library, Suz Massen, Associate Chief Librarian for Access, explores a selection from the library’s over 100,000 auction catalogs. These materials are invaluable for researchers piecing together the history of an object or collection.

Discover the joint project of the Frick Art Reference Library’s summer 2023 interns. In anticipation of the library becoming the repository for the Archives of American Art’s extensive microfilm collection, the interns examined the existing presence of materials on American art in the library’s collections. In this post, they each present a fascinating aspect of their findings.

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.

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.

Stephen J. Bury, Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian, explores one of the most fascinating eras in the Frick Art Reference Library’s hundred-year history. A photograph from the 1940s sheds light on the creation of maps at the library during World War II, which were made to prevent the destruction of at-risk cultural sites and works of art in war areas.

As we continue celebrating the centennial of the Frick Art Reference Library, Stephen J. Bury, Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian, explores an unexpected strength of the library’s collections: materials on modern art. In this post, Stephen discusses a sample of the library’s exhibition catalogs from the Surrealist movement, which began in Paris in 1924, the same year the Frick Art Reference Library opened its first dedicated building.

Discover a newly digitized book of engravings of views of Paris from the 1780s, the product of a collaborative project by the four summer 2022 interns at the Frick Art Reference Library.

As we continue to celebrate the Frick Art Reference Library’s one-hundredth anniversary, Kerri A. Pfister, Photoarchivist, guides us through the library’s collections of reproductions, which have enabled the widespread study of art history. From printmaking to photography to digital imagery, the library has offered cutting-edge technologies through the ages to fulfill its mission of making art resources accessible to the public. Objects featured in this post are part of the celebratory publication One Hundred Objects in the Frick Art Reference Library, available in the Frick’s shop.

In commemoration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the Frick Art Reference Library, Sally Brazil, Barbara G. Fleischman Associate Chief Librarian for Archives and Records Management, looks back on the lifeblood of the library through the decades—its incredible staff. Discover photographs, scrapbooks, drawings, and archival materials documenting the contributions of generations of knowledgeable staff members, who have guided the library’s mission and growth over the past century.