Blogs

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. Objects featured in the post are part of the celebratory publication One Hundred Objects in the Frick Art Reference Library, available for purchase in the Museum Shop.

In commemoration of the seventy-seventh anniversary of the Allied victory in World War II, Michelle McCarthy-Behler, Reference Lead, offers ten titles from the Frick Art Reference Library exploring art during and after the Second World War—from paintings on the front lines to art used as propaganda, the Monuments Men, and later restitution efforts.

On May 3, 1947, the poet T. S. Eliot delivered a lecture at the Frick on John Milton’s Paradise Lost. In honor of the centenary of the publication of Eliot’s highly influential poem The Waste Land, explore the surprising connections between this famous work, Milton’s Edenic verse, and the lush forests of Fragonard’s Progress of Love.

Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert (ca. 1475–80) is one of the Frick’s most beloved works of art, but there was a time when it could not find a buyer. Explore the ups and downs of the art market through an interactive map charting the panel’s peregrinations, from quattrocento Venice to its temporary home at Frick Madison.

A massive banner discovered during preparations for the museum’s temporary move to Frick Madison, was the key to finally identify a group of uncaptioned photographs in the Frick Archives.

In this month’s reading list from the Frick Art Reference Library, Eugenie Fortier, Acting Storage and Retrieval Lead, explores the 171-year tradition of World’s Fairs, to coincide with the current World Expo in Dubai. Recommended books delve into the fairs’ remarkable presentations of art, technology, and global culture.

Giulio Dalvit, Assistant Curator of Sculpture, explores connections between Francisco de Goya’s painting The Forge and Pietro Tacca’s bronze statue Nessus and Deianira, made centuries apart and today found in adjacent galleries at Frick Madison. The statue is a remarkable achievement of the same type of labor depicted in Goya’s canvas, both employing metalwork as a powerful storytelling device.

Reproductions in the Frick’s Photoarchive allow us to piece together a full visual history of Raphael’s Baronci Altarpiece, the first recorded commission of the High Renaissance master. The altarpiece—today found only in fragments—sat peacefully for nearly three hundred years until a devastating earthquake and looting by Napoleon changed its fate permanently.