National Historical Landmark- The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library

The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library in New York comprise an institution that is considered one of the great legacies of the first period of major art collecting in the United States, one of the defining activities of the Gilded Age elite.

Among his contemporaries, Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) stood out as both a collector and, with his superb Carrère & Hastings edifice sensitively designed for a high-profile Fifth Avenue site, architectural patron.

Frick's vast fortune, knowledge of the arts and architecture, nurtured and bolstered by a cadre of expert advisors, and desire to create a monument of the most personal sort resulted in a museum and institution with few rivals. It is one of the best examples of the (art) house museum subsets within that type in this country.

Its transition from private house museum to publicly accessible institution whose core mission was retention of the character established by Frick required expansion so expertly conceived by John Russell Pope that the earlier and later portions read as a seamless whole.

Pope's additions, constructed between 1931 and 1935, included a much-expanded Frick Art Reference Library, which has been an integral aspect of the institution since its 1920 founding by daughter Helen Clay Frick (1888-1984). The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library Building maintains an uncommon degree of physical integrity and articulately convey the character defining features that underpin its national significance both for its architecture and as a cultural institution.

Courtesy National Park Service National Historical Landmarks