After Henry Frick's death in 1919, his daughter Helen channeled her energy into turning the Frick Library into a premier centre for scholarly research. Frick’s private collection was one of the most coveted in the world, but it was the library built by his daughter that pursued his goal to encourage and develop the study of the fine arts, and to advance the general knowledge of the arts. Once crowded into the Frick mansion’s bowling alley, the library moved in 1935 into a 13-storey structure designed for the purpose. Because we have examined the Frick Collection in lectures, I knew all about Frick, his daughter and the library.
I had been very interested in The Monuments Men since reading Robert Edsel's book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, (by Hachette Books) back in 2009. Let me repeat. The Monuments Men were a multinational group of 350 men and women who volunteered for military service in order to protect monuments and other cultural treasures from destruction during WW2. In civilian life, many of them had been museum directors, curators, artists, architects and educators. These dedicated men and women tracked, located, and ultimately returned to their rightful owners more than five million artworks and cultural items stolen or destroyed by the Nazis. Their role in preserving Europe’s architecture and cultural treasures was without precedent.
But I had forgotten about The Frick Art Reference Library's involvement in the team's projects!
The story of the Monuments Men in Europe has become better known, but few are aware that another group of dedicated art historians were engaged in the fight for European art, in the USA. In 1943 William Dinsmoor, Columbia professor and Chairman of the American Council of Learned Societies, established the Committee on the Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas. Supported financially by the Rockefeller Foundation, the team consisted of 30 volunteer American and European scholars.
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Gen Dwight Eisenhower and the Monuments Men found paintings hidden in a German salt mine in April 1945. Photo credit: Sydney Morning Herald
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Even before the end of hostilities, the Frick staff and its resources also played a vital role in the research needed for the recovery of stolen and looted art, which became a top priority of Dinsmoor’s committee and its parent Washington-based Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in Europe. Indeed, still today, with the help of the Frick Art Reference Library’s vast resources, researchers continue to piece together information to help reunite works of art and their rightful owners.
I had been very interested in The Monuments Men since reading Robert Edsel's book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, (by Hachette Books) back in 2009. Let me repeat. The Monuments Men were a multinational group of 350 men and women who volunteered for military service in order to protect monuments and other cultural treasures from destruction during WW2. In civilian life, many of them had been museum directors, curators, artists, architects and educators. These dedicated men and women tracked, located, and ultimately returned to their rightful owners more than five million artworks and cultural items stolen or destroyed by the Nazis. Their role in preserving Europe’s architecture and cultural treasures was without precedent.
But I had forgotten about The Frick Art Reference Library's involvement in the team's projects!
The story of the Monuments Men in Europe has become better known, but few are aware that another group of dedicated art historians were engaged in the fight for European art, in the USA. In 1943 William Dinsmoor, Columbia professor and Chairman of the American Council of Learned Societies, established the Committee on the Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas. Supported financially by the Rockefeller Foundation, the team consisted of 30 volunteer American and European scholars.
Headquartered largely at the Frick Art Reference Library, which had been involved in the preservation effort by 1941, Dinsmoor’s committee was responsible for coordinating information gathered from diverse sources and compiling it into a master index and photo archive. The index listed the historic buildings and important works of art in each occupied country.
Library director Helen Clay Frick invited the Committee of the American Council of Learned Societies on Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas to take up residence at the Library from 1943-45. Working alongside art historians and other experts on the Committee, Frick librarians and photographers prepared the vital information. Once the maps and lists of monuments were completed at the Frick Library, they were distributed to the Allied armed forces in Europe, to spare the art treasures during bombing raids.
In 1943 the library closed its doors for six months — the only time in its 93-year history that it has done so — in order to support the committee’s research. Meanwhile, over at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they were closing at dusk for fear of visitors stealing pictures in a blackout. And every night, the Museum of Modern Art was moving paintings to a sandbagged area, then rehanging them in the morning. The Frick Collection itself was blacking its windows and skylights so that enemy bombers could not spot it in the middle of Manhattan. Many thanks to Robert Edsel's own blog for this information.
Library director Helen Clay Frick invited the Committee of the American Council of Learned Societies on Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas to take up residence at the Library from 1943-45. Working alongside art historians and other experts on the Committee, Frick librarians and photographers prepared the vital information. Once the maps and lists of monuments were completed at the Frick Library, they were distributed to the Allied armed forces in Europe, to spare the art treasures during bombing raids.
In 1943 the library closed its doors for six months — the only time in its 93-year history that it has done so — in order to support the committee’s research. Meanwhile, over at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they were closing at dusk for fear of visitors stealing pictures in a blackout. And every night, the Museum of Modern Art was moving paintings to a sandbagged area, then rehanging them in the morning. The Frick Collection itself was blacking its windows and skylights so that enemy bombers could not spot it in the middle of Manhattan. Many thanks to Robert Edsel's own blog for this information.
Members of the Committee of the American Council of Learned Societies on the Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas, working on a map of Paris at the Frick Art Reference Library during 1944. Photo credit: The Frick Collection