Frick Art Reference Library Staff Records - Katharine McCook Knox

The Frick Art Reference Library was founded in 1920 by Helen Clay Frick (1888-1984) in honor of her father, industrialist and art collector Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919). Katharine McCook Knox (1890-1983), a Washington, D.C.-area art historian and author specializing in early American art, began her association with the Frick Art Reference Library in 1922. A friend of Helen Clay Frick’s since they were classmates at Miss Spence’s School for Girls in New York City, her involvement with the Frick Art Reference Library as a researcher, consultant, and special staff member spanned over 50 years. Mrs. Knox often worked from her Washington, D.C. home, providing new research on artists and paintings in the Library’s photoarchive, researching entries for The Frick Collection catalog, and acquiring photographs for the Library. She also planned and participated in Library photographing expeditions, which were undertaken by the staff to document works of art held in private collections, historical societies, museums, and other institutions throughout the U.S.

In 1931, Mrs. Knox supervised the photographing of portraits in the White House and compiled the photographs and her research into a binder, which the Frick Art Reference Library presented as a gift to the White House. Her book, The Story of the Frick Art Reference Library: The Early Years (1979), the only published history of the Library, traces its founding and growth, and includes her personal reminiscences. Mrs. Knox was also a lecturer and art collector, and was involved in planning exhibitions for Washington D.C. museums, including the National Collection of Fine Arts of the Smithsonian Institution, the Phillips Gallery, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Her publications include: The Sharples: Their Portraits of George Washington and His Contemporaries (1931), The Portraits of the Adams-Clements Collection and Their Painters (1951), and “Healy’s Lincoln No. 1” (1956, 1959), as well as numerous other articles.