Lawrence Park Diary

Collection

Identifier: MS.023

Staff Only

Scope and Content Note

Diary of March-April 1923 trip to South Carolina to identify and photograph paintings throughout the state for the Frick Art Reference Library. Lawrence Park, Helen Clay Frick (for 3 weeks of the trip), Ira Martin, and various friends of Miss Frick made the trip. The diary is handwritten and full of enclosures. It gives a detailed account of their activities (who they met, where they went, where they stayed, what they ate, and what they saw).

Dates

Creation: 1923

Creator

Park, Lawrence, 1873-1924 (Person)

Access Restrictions

These records are open for research under the conditions of The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives access policy. Contact the Archives Department for further information.

Biographical Note

Lawrence Park was born in Worcester, Mass. in 1873 to John Gray Park and Elizabeth Bigelow Lawrence. He attended Harvard and the School of Drawing and Painting in the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston. After graduation, he worked as an architect in Boston, commuting from Groton. He married Maria Davis Motley in 1905 and they had two children.

Park became interested in family portraits in 1914 while writing a genealogy. He wrote publications regarding portraitists Joseph Badger, Joseph Blackburn, and Gilbert Stuart. He became an authority on early American painting and was made curator of Colonial Art at the Cleveland Museum in 1919. Park went on two Frick Art Reference Library photographing expeditions to Virginia in 1922 and South Carolina in 1923.