Frick Fine Arts Building
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| Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building | |
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| (U.S. Registered Historic District Contributing Property) |
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| Coordinates: | Coordinates: |
| Area: | Schenley Farms Historic District |
| Built/Founded: | 1962-1965 |
| Architect: | Burton Kenneth Johnstone |
| Architectural style(s): | Neo-Renaissance |
| Added to NRHP: | July 22, 1983[1] |
| NRHP Reference#: | 83002213 |
| Governing body: | University of Pittsburgh |
The Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building is a landmark Renaissance villa and a contributing property to the Schenley Farms National Historic District[1][2] on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.
It sits on the southern edge of Schenley Plaza, opposite The Carnegie Institute, and is the home of Pitt’s History of Art and Architecture Department, Studio Arts Department, and the Frick Fine Arts Library. Before its front steps is Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain.
A noted 1965 low relief portrait of Henry Clay Frick by Malvina Hoffman in limestone sits above the entrance to the building. Hoffman was 79 years old when she accepted the commission. She could not sculpt it herself because union rules prevented sculptors from working on a relief attached to a building. However, she climbed up on the scaffolding to oversee the completion of the work.[3][4]
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[edit] History
The building is a gift of Helen Clay Frick (1888–1984), daughter of the Pittsburgh industrialist and art patron Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919). She established the Fine Arts Department at the University of Pittsburgh in 1926 and continued to fund it through the 1950s, when she first made a commitment to create a separate structure to house it.[5] Land for the project was donated to the university by the City of Pittsburgh.
In early negotiations with the University of Pittsburgh, Miss Frick asked that successors to the New York architects Carrère and Hastings design the new facility after the Italian palazzo its firm had built in Manhattan for her father some fifty years earlier. Eventually, however, both parties agreed to Burton Kenneth Johnstone Associates as the architects. Its design is modeled after Pope Julius III's (1487–1555) Villa Giulia in Rome, Italy. The building is constructed of white limestone and marble with a terracotta tile roof around a central courtyard. An octagonal cupola, which caps the central rotunda, rises 45 feet above the ground.[6] The building houses the the University of Pittsburgh's Department of History of Art and Architecture, and is contains classrooms, an open cloister, an art gallery, a 200-seat auditorium, as well as a research library. Construction began in 1962 and the building was opened in May of 1965.
By the late 1960s Miss Frick, unhappy that the university did not conform to her restrictions on management of both the department and the new building, severed her ties with the University of Pittsburgh. She responded by creating a new venture, The Frick Art Museum, on the property of her ancestral home, Clayton, a few miles east in Pittsburgh's Point Breeze neighborhood. That museum operates today as a part of the Frick Art & Historical Center complex.
[edit] Nicholas Lochoff Cloister
The Nicholas Lochoff Cloister is a main feature of the Frick Fine Arts Building. Its large paintings of Italian masterpieces are scale reproductions that were commissioned in 1911 from Nicholas Lochoff by the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts). Lochoff worked slowly and carefully. Only a few paintings were completed and sent back to Russia by the Russian Revolution of 1917. Lochoff, unable to return because of new communist regime, felt compelled to sell off the paintings. Buyers included Harvard University and the Frick Art Reference Library in New York. Miss Frick acquired the entire collection, however, after Lochoff's death, with the help of art critic Bernard Berenson. In 2003, the paintings were cleaned and restored by Christine Daulton.
[edit] Frick Fine Arts Library
Located in Frick Fine Arts Building, this two-story library houses a non-circulating research collection serving the Department of the History of Art and Architecture. The Collection contains over 90,000 volumes and subscribes to more than 350 journals in relevant fields and is ranked among the top 10 fine art libraries in the country.[7][8] The library's reading room is constructed of fruit wood paneling and cabinetwork with gold leaf trim designed by Italian craftsmen. The library is further appointed by wrought iron balcony railings, terracotta tile flooring, maple tables with matching Windsor chairs, and ceiling-high windows furnishing views of Schenley Park. An inscription on the wall facing the entrance indicates the libraries dedication to Henry Clay Frick.[9]
[edit] University Arts Gallery
The permanent collection contains a collection of prints and graphic works dating from the 16th through 20th centuries and regularly hosts changing exhibitions sponsored by the Department of the History of Art and Architecture and the Friends organization. Some of the more prominent pieces in the permanent collection include a large collection of Jacques Callot and Gertrude Quastler prints; 16th-18th century drawings from the Clapp and Denny families; a collection of 19th and 20th century photography; the Gimbel collection of American art; and various Japanese prints, Asian ceramics, portraitures, and Pittsburgh related paintings by Hetzel, Gorson, and Kane.[10]
[edit] External links
- Frick Fine Arts website
- Frick Fine Arts virtual tour
- University Art Gallery
- University Art Gallery: Art Anytime
- Nicholas Lochoff Cloister virtual tour
- Frick Fine Arts Library
- Frick Fine Arts Library Panoramic
- University of Pittsburgh Department of History of Art & Architecture
- University of Pittsburgh Department of Studio Arts
[edit] References
- Alberts, Robert C. (1987). Pitt: The Story of the University of Pittsburgh 1787–1987. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-1150-7.
- Marylynne Pitz (2003). Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Rare murals being restored in Pitt fine arts building. Retrieved May 23, 2007.
- Toker, Franklin [1986] (1994). Pittsburgh: An Urban Portrait. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-5434-6.
[edit] Gallery
 Nicholas Lochoff Gallery |
 The back of the Frick Fine Arts Building |
| Preceded by Litchfield Towers |
University of Pittsburgh Buildings Frick Fine Arts Building Constructed: 1962-1965 |
Succeeded by David Lawrence Hall |
