Google Earth Community: A Visit to the Frick Collection, New York City

Henry Clay Frick (1849 - 1919) was an American industrialist who made an enormous fortune in the coke and steel businesses. Along with Andrew Carnegie, he founded the Carnegie Steel Company, the predecessor to the US Steel Corporation.

In 1905, he moved his family from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to New York City, eventually constructing a mansion on Fifth Avenue and 70th Street. He designed the building to hold his personal art collection, which he had decided to bequeath to the public upon his death. When he died in December 1919, he bequeathed the mansion and the majority of the collection as well as endowment funds to establish a public gallery "encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts...subject to occupancy by Mrs. Frick during her lifetime." Mrs. Frick died in 1931; the Frick Collection opened in 1935.

Henry Clay Frick had started collecting art when he made his first fortune at the age of 30. Over the course of his life, he assembled a collection which spanned the history of Western Art from the early Renaissance to the time of his death.

The bequest included 131 paintings as well as hundreds of other works of art, including sculptures, drawings, prints and decorative pieces. It featured works by Rembrandt, JMW Turner, Titian, Whistler, Goya, El Greco and three of the world's thirty-four precious Johannes Vermeer paintings. Nearly fifty additional paintings have been acquired since the museum's opening. It is considered one of the finest collections of art in the world. The Frick Art Reference Library which provides research materials for scholars and art professionals is also located within the Frick Mansion.

This presentation takes one on a visit to the Frick Collection, highlighting 70 of its artworks. Icons representing each piece are generally arranged based on where they are presently located on the museum's floor plan. The placemarks include images and information about the artwork and artist, links to more information and virtual tours of the museum.

The primary reference for this presentation was the Frick Collection website, along with supplementary information from numerous other sources, which are noted in the placemarks.

The paintings shown above are the Comtesse d'Haussonville by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Cologne: The Arrival of a Packet-Boat: Evening by Joseph Mallord William Turner.

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