The creation, growth, and present-day role of The Frick Art Reference Library was the focus of a special exhibition marking the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the institution. The first section of the exhibition surveyed the Library's history from its foundation to the present. Photographs, architectural plans, records, maps, newspaper clippings, and artifacts documented the Library's growth from its early acquisition of materials to the time of the construction of the first building (1924) and the current location (1935) at 10 East 71st Street. The Library's central role in the American efforts to preserve paintings and other art-historical monuments during World War II and immediately after were amply illustrated, as well as its growth and modernization in more recent decades. The second section of the exhibition demonstrated the scope of the Library's resources through select examples of photographic mounts, rare books, ephemera, and original materials. Ways in which scholars and the general public use the photographic archives and book collections to understand the history, significance, and authenticity of works of art were vividly explained with both visual and written materials.
Frick Art Reference Library Reading Room, 1935. The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives.