The Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building is a landmark

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house that provided an escape from urban life. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the f ...

and a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...

to the Schenley Farms-Oakland Civic Historic District on the campus of the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

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. The Frick Fine Arts Building sits on the southern edge of

Schenley Plaza Schenley Plaza is a public park serving as the grand entrance into Schenley Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The plaza, located on Forbes Avenue and Schenley Drive in the city's Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland distric ...

, opposite The Carnegie Institute, and is the home of Pitt's History of Art and Architecture Department, Studio Arts Department, and the Frick Fine Arts Library. Before its front steps is Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain.

History

Frick Fine Arts Building - Pitt - IMG 0762

The Frick Fine Arts Building sits on the site of the former Schenley Park Casino, Pittsburgh's first multi-purpose arena with an indoor ice skating rink, sat on the location of the building before burning down in December 1896. The building itself is a gift of Helen Clay Frick (1888–1984), daughter of the Pittsburgh industrialist and art patron

Henry Clay Frick Henry Clay Frick (December 19, 1849 – December 2, 1919) was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company and played a major ...

(1849–1919). She established the

Fine Arts In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creativity, creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function ...

Department at the University of Pittsburgh in 1926 and continued to fund it through the 1950s, when she first made a commitment to create a separate structure to house it. Land for the project was donated to the university by the City of Pittsburgh. In early negotiations with the University of Pittsburgh, Miss Frick asked that successors to the

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architects Carrère and Hastings design the new facility after the Italian

palazzo A palace is a large residence, often serving as a royal residence or the home for a head of state or another high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome whi ...

its firm had built in

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for her father some fifty years earlier. Eventually, however, both parties agreed to Burton Kenneth Johnstone Associates as the architects. Its design is modeled after

Pope Julius III Pope Julius III (; ; 10 September 1487 – 23 March 1555), born Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 February 1550 to his death, in March 1555. After a career as a disting ...

's (1487–1555)

Villa Giulia The Villa Giulia is a villa in Rome, Italy. It is named after Pope Julius III, who had it built in 1551–1553 on what was then the edge of the city. Today it is publicly owned, and houses the Museo Nazionale Etrusco, a collection of Etruscan ...

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. The building is constructed of white limestone and marble with a terracotta tile roof around a central courtyard. An octagonal cupola, which caps the central rotunda, rises 45 feet above the ground. The building houses the University of Pittsburgh's Department of History of Art and Architecture and Department of Studio Arts, and contains classrooms, an open cloister, an art gallery, a 200-seat auditorium, as well as a research library. Construction began in 1962 and the building was opened in May 1965. By the late 1960s Miss Frick, unhappy that the university did not conform to her restrictions on management of both the department and the new building, severed her ties with the University of Pittsburgh. She responded by creating a new venture, The Frick Art Museum, on the property of her ancestral home, Clayton, a few miles east in Pittsburgh's Point Breeze neighborhood. That museum operates today as a part of the

Frick Art & Historical Center The Frick Pittsburgh is a cluster of museums and historical buildings located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, and formed around the Frick family's nineteenth-century residence known as "Clayton". It focuses on the interpretation o ...

complex.

Building use and features

Art gallery at the Frick Fine Arts Building 2

Today, the Frick Fine Arts Building consists of classrooms, art studios, a library, and art galleries around an open cloister and contains a high octagon capped by a pyramidal roof. A noted 1965 low relief portrait of Henry Clay Frick by

Malvina Hoffman Malvina Cornell Hoffman (June 15, 1885July 10, 1966) was an American sculpture, sculptor and author, well known for her life-size bronze sculptures of people. She also worked in plaster and marble. Hoffman created portrait busts of working-class ...

in limestone sits above the entrance to the building. Hoffman was 79 years old when she accepted the commission. She could not sculpt it herself because union rules prevented sculptors from working on a relief attached to a building. However, she climbed up on the scaffolding to oversee the completion of the work. Inside the main entrance, a neon work by contemporary Chinese artist Gu Wenda is installed in the lobby. The building also contains a 200-seat auditorium that is used for lectures, performances, and special events.

Nicholas Lochoff Cloister

The Nicholas Lochoff Cloister is a main feature of the Frick Fine Arts Building. Its large paintings of

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masterpieces are scale reproductions that were commissioned in 1911 from Nicholas Lochoff by the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts). Lochoff worked slowly and carefully. Only a few paintings were completed and sent back to

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

by the

Russian Revolution of 1917 The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

. Lochoff, unable to return because of new communist regime, felt compelled to sell off the paintings. Buyers included

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and the Frick Art Reference Library in New York. Miss Frick acquired the entire collection, however, after Lochoff's death, with the help of art critic Bernard Berenson. In 2003, the paintings were cleaned and restored by Christine Daulton. Also in the gallery are noted

Carrara Carrara ( ; ; , ) is a town and ''comune'' in Tuscany, in central Italy, of the province of Massa and Carrara, and notable for the white or blue-grey Carrara marble, marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some Boxing the compass, ...

marble reproductions of 14th century

Annunciation The Annunciation (; ; also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord; ) is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement made by the archangel Gabriel to Ma ...

figures by sculptor Alceo Dossena.

Frick Fine Arts Library

Located in Frick Fine Arts Building, this two-story library houses a circulating research collection serving the Departments of the History of Art and Architecture and Studio Arts. The Collection contains over 90,000 volumes and subscribes to more than 350 journals in relevant fields and is ranked among the top 10 fine art libraries in the country. The library's reading room is constructed of fruit wood paneling and cabinetwork with gold leaf trim designed by Italian craftsmen. The library is further appointed by wrought iron balcony railings, terracotta tile flooring, maple tables with matching Windsor chairs, and ceiling-high windows furnishing views of

Schenley Park Schenley Park () is a large municipal park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located between the neighborhoods of Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland, Greenfield (Pittsburgh), Greenfield, and Squirrel Hill. It is also listed on the Nat ...

. An inscription on the wall facing the entrance indicates the libraries dedication to

University Arts Gallery

Frick Fine Arts Building - Pitt - IMG 0767

The permanent collection contains a collection of prints and graphic works dating from the 16th through 20th centuries and regularly hosts changing exhibitions sponsored by the Department of the History of Art and Architecture and the Friends organization. Some of the more prominent pieces in the permanent collection include a large collection of

Jacques Callot Jacques Callot (; – 1635) was a baroque printmaker and drawing, draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine. He is an important person in the development of the old master print. He made more than 1,400 etchings that chronicled the life of his peri ...

and Gertrude Quastler prints; 16th-18th century drawings from the Clapp and Denny families; a collection of 19th and 20th century photography; the Gimbel collection of American art; and various Japanese prints, Asian ceramics, portraits, and Pittsburgh-related paintings by Hetzel, Gorson, and Kane.

Popular culture

The Frick Fine Arts Building appeared in scenes set at the University of Pittsburgh on an episode of ''

As the World Turns ''As the World Turns'' (often abbreviated as ''ATWT'') is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS for 54 years from April 2, 1956, to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created ''As the World Turns'' as a sister show to her other so ...

'' that aired on November 12, 2002.

Gallery

File:FrickFineArtsBuildinginWinter.jpg File:Frick Fine Arts Building - Pitt - IMG 0766.jpg File:FrickFineArtsCourtyard.jpg File:FrickFineArtsBuildingfromCloister.jpg File:Auditorium in the Frick Fine Arts Building.jpg, Frick Fine Arts Auditorium FrickFineArtsLobby.jpg, Frick Fine Arts main entrance lobby File:CathedralofLearningFrickFineArts.jpg File:FrickFineArtsCloisterDetail.jpg, Nicholas Lochoff Gallery File:LochoffFrickFineArts2.jpg, Nicholas Lochoff Gallery File:Frick Fine Arts Building - back.JPG, The back of the Frick Fine Arts Building File:Statue next to the Frick Fine Arts Building 02.JPG, The Spanish War memorial is a copy of ''The Hiker'' (1925) by Allen Newman and sits on the left side of Frick Fine Arts

References

* * Marylynne Pitz (2003)
''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'': Rare murals being restored in Pitt fine arts building
Retrieved May 23, 2007. *

External links

Frick Fine Arts Building on Pitt's virtual Campus Tour

Frick Fine Arts Building photos
Art Gallery
University Art Gallery

Departments
Department of History of Art & Architecture

Department of Studio Arts

Panorama
Frick Fine Arts Library Panoramic
Video
WQED OnQ: Lochoff's Replicas
{{authority control University of Pittsburgh academic buildings University and college academic libraries in the United States Libraries in Pennsylvania Art schools in Pennsylvania Museums in Pittsburgh Art museums and galleries in Pennsylvania University and college academic buildings in the United States University museums in Pennsylvania Renaissance Revival architecture in Pennsylvania Tourist attractions in Pittsburgh Historic district contributing properties in Pennsylvania National Register of Historic Places in Pittsburgh