The Frick Collection Symposium on the History of Art Records

The Frick Collection, founded by Pittsburgh industrialist and art collector Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), opened to the public in December 1935. Mr. Frick bequeathed his residence and art collection to establish a public gallery for the purpose of "encouraging and developing the study of fine arts."

The Frick Collection education program began in 1936 with a series of lectures. In an effort to broaden this program, The Frick Collection, in conjunction with the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, held its first Symposium on Art and Archaeology for graduate students on February 23, 1940, the first symposium of its kind to be held in the United States. The press release announcing the first Symposium referred to it as "a new experiment in art education," held to "provide graduate students with an opportunity to meet one another and compare varying approaches to the field of art in a scholarly and appreciative environment."

The idea of holding a symposium at which graduate students would present their papers was first suggested to Frederick Mortimer Clapp, The Frick Collection Director, by Prof. Charles Rufus Morey of Princeton University in October 1939. Dr. Clapp approached Prof. Walter W. S. Cook of New York University with the proposal of holding a joint symposium. Once the structure and participating institutions were agreed upon, invitations were sent to the heads of the art history graduate programs of five northeastern institutions. Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and New York Universities were asked to select a maximum of two graduate students each to present papers on topics of their choice, while Bryn Mawr was invited to select one student. Presentations were limited to twenty minutes each, with discussion to take place after each paper. The first Symposium was held jointly, with an afternoon session at The Frick Collection and an evening session at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. While no formal invitations outside of the participating institutions were issued, interested faculty and graduate students from the area were welcomed to attend. In the second year, invitations were extended to the faculties of university art departments and the staffs of museums in the vicinity of New York.

The Symposium was suspended from 1942 to 1946, and was held solely at New York University in 1947 and 1948. The Symposium was sponsored by The Frick Collection in 1949, and thereafter the event was hosted alternately by The Frick Collection and the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. In 1952, the program's title was changed to the Symposium on the History of Art. In 1953, the University of Pennsylvania was invited to include one student speaker and has since remained among the regular roster of participating institutions. In 1969, the Symposium was lengthened to two days, with The Frick Collection and the New York University Institute of Fine Arts each hosting one day's events. While other universities had previously been invited on occasion to present papers when speaking slots were available, in 1969 the roster of participants officially expanded to include Brown University, the University of Delaware, Johns Hopkins University and Oberlin College.

In 1970, a rotational system was set up, with the original five participants maintaining their slots, while the State University of New York at Binghamton, Boston University, Brown University, the University of Delaware and Johns Hopkins University were to receive invitations every second or third year based on the size of their graduate program in art history. Rutgers University became a participant on a rotational basis in 1973. In 1979, the program was again expanded, allowing all five founding institutions to be represented by two speakers, and the others by one annually. The length of the papers was reduced from twenty to fifteen minutes to accommodate the additional presenters. The University of Delaware and Johns Hopkins University were no longer included, as they participated in the Mid Atlantic Symposium, established in the early 1970s. Although the date is not documented in these records, at some point all participating institutions were limited to one student speaker.