“May be a little too enthusiastic about pictures”: Henry Clay Frick as a Collector

Ian Wardropper

An 1870 Mellon Bank report on Henry Clay Frick’s coking operation in Connelsville, Pennsylvania described him as “may be a little too enthusiastic about pictures, but not enough to hurt.” By the time his Manhattan mansion opened in 1914 this early enthusiasm became a disciplined passion, as he assembled one of the finest collections of Old Master paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts in the world. This lecture traces his trajectory as a collector and the legacy of the institution he established.