Picture Library

When Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Carnegie's longtime steelmaking partner, died in 1919, he left his great art collection, his impressive Manhattan home and one of the few private lawns on Fifth Avenue to his widow for her lifetime, with the provision that thereafter it should become a public museum. The Widow Frick has been dead since 1931 and the Frick Museum is not yet ready for the public.

This week a new seven-story building was opened immediately behind the Frick Museum, with which it will eventually be integrated. No part of Henry Frick's original bequest, the Frick Library was the idea and gift of his daughter Helen. Stocked with some 45,000 books, pamphlets, catalogs and over 200,000 photo graphs, it was instantly recognized as one of the most important art libraries in the world.

Many years ago Miss Helen Frick began to study art seriously so that she could better appreciate the things her father's dealers were buying for him. She acquired an extensive collection of art books, was glad to let fellow students use them. The Frick art library grew & grew. A librarian had to be hired, then assistants; finally a house was built to hold it all. The Frick Art Reference Library, like Sir Robert Witt's in London, chose to specialize in photographs of works of art. It did not content itself with buying prints of pictures in museums, private collections and dealer galleries. Instead, it put special photographers under contract in France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U. S., sent them to obscure collections, little-known churches, private houses.

The new building, designed by Architect John Russell Pope, has on its fac,ade an ornate icing of Renaissance cornices, spandrels, balustrades. Inside, however, it is as efficient a library building as exists in the country. Completely air conditioned, there are no windows below the third floor. Besides the stacks, there is a walnut-paneled reading room, a smaller study for advanced students, a photographic studio, a photostat room, offices, cafeteria for the staff.

At its opening bang-haired Royal Cortissoz, most learned of Manhattan's art critics, sat himself down to test the library's resources. Shooting his cuffs, he called for material on Botticelli's Abundance in the British Museum and the portrait of Alessandro del Borro in Berlin. The telautograph squiggled and in a few minutes stack girls emerged with two folders. Critic Cortissoz' little goatee waggled with pleasure to find attached to an excellent photograph of the Botticelli drawing the date, a list of all the reproductions that have ever been published, all previous owners, all exhibitions at which the original has been shown, along with descriptive passages from text books. The Borro portrait has been variously ascribed to Velasquez, Bernini, Carreno de Miranda, Tinelli, Andrea Sacchi and others. The Frick Museum was not to be caught. All these claims were listed on the back of the photograph and a brief summary of the entire argument attached.

Supplying Mr. Cortissoz' wants was child's play for Librarian Ethelwyn Manning and her 30 assistants. She is prouder of the library's special services. The library has the finest collection of photographs of illuminated manuscripts in the world. Frick photographers have toured the Pyrenees taking pictures of Romanesque and Gothic paintings made long before Giotto was born. Over 1,000 portraits and miniatures have been photographed in private homes in Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Nantucket, Pittsburgh and Bermuda. The library is not too busy to recommend reading lists for ladies' clubs or, for a small fee, to supply publishers, dealers or students with usable photostats of any of its 200,000 photographs.

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