Helen Clay Frick Papers, Series VIII: University of Pittsburgh Fine Arts Department Files

This collection, consisting of correspondence, printed material, notes, photographs, exhibition files, and architectural drawings, documents Helen Clay Frick's support of the Department and her relationship with the University. Materials are arranged in three subseries: I. Administrative Files, 1925-1967; II: Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building, 1928-1970, undated (bulk 1957-1967); and III. Exhibition Files, 1933-1985, undated.

Subseries I: Administrative Files, 1925-1967, chiefly contains correspondence, but also includes budget information, notes, inventories, photographs, clippings, and other printed material regarding the establishment, administration, and activities of the Fine Arts Department. Files from the 1920s are of particular interest as they contain letters to and/or from prominent art historians and museum curators, as well as university officials during the time of the Department's founding. Correspondents include Richard Offner, Edward W. Forbes, John G. Bowman, Theodore Sizer, Paul J. Sachs, Homer Saint-Gaudens, Frederick Mortimer Clapp, and Walter Read Hovey. After Clapp's resignation from the University in 1937, Helen Clay Frick corresponded most frequently with Walter Read Hovey and Virginia Lewis about departmental matters, including budgets, course offerings, exhibitions, and special events. To a lesser extent, this subseries also documents Walter Read Hovey's own art collecting activities, and includes several folders of his correspondence with galleries and art dealers dating from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Subseries II: Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building, 1928-1970, undated (bulk 1957-1967), contains correspondence, architectural specifications, photographs, printed material, and architectural drawings detailing the construction and administration of the Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building, which was finished in 1965. These materials document the design process, construction costs, furnishing, landscaping, and maintenance and repair of the building. Included in this subseries are files regarding the acquisition and display of a group of frescoes by the Russian artist Nicholas Lochoff. Files in this subseries also provide insight into Helen Clay Frick's conflicts with University administrators and faculty, as detailed largely through correspondence and clippings. Correspondents in this subseries include professors William C. Loerke and Walter Read Hovey; Dean Frank W. Wadsworth; Chancellor Edward H. Litchfield; Vice Chancellor Charles Peake; Trustees Richard K. Mellon and William H. Rea; National Gallery of Art Director John Walker; and Helen Clay Frick's legal counsel.

Subseries III: Exhibition Files, 1933-1985, undated, documents the exhibition program at the University of Pittsburgh's Fine Arts Department, which was overseen by Virginia Lewis and Walter Read Hovey. Folder contents vary from one exhibition to another, but may contain correspondence, loan documentation, checklists, photographs, notes, catalogs, and clippings. Information given about the exhibition may include the exhibition title, dates, names of organizers and lenders, events in connection with the exhibition, and attendance. Exhibitions vary widely in subject matter from ancient Chinese art to Western contemporary art, as well as decorative arts and crafts. Artists of note include Andrey Avinoff, Paul Klee, Charles-Alexander Lesueur, Jozsef Domjan, and Marc Chagall. Some exhibitions were organized locally and showed items from area collectors, while others were traveling exhibitions loaned by galleries or arts organizations, especially the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. Exhibitions were held at the Cathedral of Learning until the completion of the Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building in 1965. Virginia Lewis and Walter Read Hovey ended their involvement in the exhibition program in 1967, though a 1977 exhibition honored Hovey as the Department's chairman emeritus. Filed at the end of this subseries are two folders concerning loans of works from Virginia Lewis' personal art collection to museums in Washington, D.C. and Cleveland, Ohio, and two folders documenting a wrought iron stand for the Book of Kells commissioned by Helen Clay Frick in 1981 for the Irish Room at the University's Cathedral of Learning.