Helen Clay Frick Papers, Series XI: Travel

Helen Clay Frick (1888–1984) was the daughter of industrialist and art collector Henry Clay Frick and his wife, Adelaide Howard Childs Frick. Born at Clayton, the Frick family residence in Pittsburgh, her early education took place at home under the tutelage of Swiss governess Marika Ogiz. In 1905, Henry Clay Frick relocated his family to the Vanderbilt mansion at 640 Fifth Avenue in New York, and Helen Clay Frick enrolled at Miss Spence's School for Girls, graduating in 1908. She made her debut into society in Pittsburgh later that same year.

After the death of her father in 1919, Helen Clay Frick became one of the founding trustees of The Frick Collection, and was instrumental in guiding the museum's early acquisitions. In 1920, she established the Frick Art Reference Library in New York as a memorial to her father and as a public resource for those with an interest in art history. Helen Clay Frick was actively involved in the establishment of the Fine Arts Department at the University of Pittsburgh, and created the Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh to house her own art collection in 1970. She died at Clayton in 1984.

Helen Clay Frick most likely traveled abroad with her family for the first time in the summer of 1889, but there is very little documentation from this trip (see: Adelaide H.C. Frick Papers, Series IV: Travel (Itineraries) in this repository). There is no evidence that the family traveled to Europe again until 1893, when they took an extended trip that included stops in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and England. The family appears to have traveled abroad every year for the remainder of the 1890s, though the level of documentation is sporadic. Thereafter, family trips became somewhat less regular, though significant trips were taken in 1905, 1909, and 1912. Helen Clay Frick traveled to Europe with both of her parents for the last time in 1914. She made her first solo trip in 1917, when she sailed to France to assist the Red Cross with the repatriation of refugees.

During the 1920s, Helen Clay Frick made a number of trips that coincided with the establishment and growth of the Frick Art Reference Library. These trips focused on England, France, and Italy, and she was occasionally accompanied by her mother, who died in 1931. Miss Frick returned to Europe in 1932, but travel was then disrupted by World War II, and she did not sail abroad again until 1947. She made trips in the 1950s and 1960s, with her last trip abroad taking place in 1967.