The Frick Fine Arts Library ~ Early History

Miss Frick as Fine Arts Department Beneficiary

Miss Frick was also a big supporter of education, especially arts education (Lockard 1997, 10). She supported many of the same institutions that her father did, including the University of Pittsburgh, and made a name for herself in the University's history by making large gifts and helping found its Fine Arts Department and Fine Arts Library (Lockard 1997, 10). Miss Frick was close friends with Chancellor John Bowman, and it was through their relationship and efforts that the Fine Arts Department at Pitt was established (Lockard 1997, 10-11). Their efforts were part of the 1920's academic breakthrough of art history, which finally became recognized during that decade as a discipline, and art as a discipline as well, Pitt being one of the first to recognize art as such (Lockard 1997, 11).  

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Miss Frick continued to be a beneficiary of the Fine Arts Department until the early 1960's, when a dispute that led to her falling out with the Fine Arts Department occurred (Lockard 1997, 11). Up to that point she had helped found the department, donated the Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building, which was built for the amount of $3.5 million and was for the department, the library, and the University Art Gallery, and had given the department a yearly $135,000 grant to pay for faculty and staff salaries (Lockard 1997, 11-12). 


Citations: 
Lockard, Ray Anne. 1997. Helen clay frick: Pittsburgh's altruist and gentlewoman avenger. Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America 16 (2): 9-14

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