Family Timeline

1901 - 1960

1902 Henry Clay Frick rents an apartment in New York City.
1902 The Frick Building at 437 Grant Street in Pittsburgh opens.
1905 The family moves to New York and rents William H. Vanderbilt house at 640 Fifth Avenue.
1905   Childs Frick graduates from Princeton University.
1906-07 A 104-room summer home, Eagle Rock, at Prides Crossing, Massachusetts is built under the direction of architect Arthur Little of Little and Brown, Boston.
1908 Helen Clay Frick’s début party is held at Clayton.
1911 Childs Frick departs on expedition to the Abyssinian region of Africa (present-day Ethiopia) to collect specimens which become the foundation of the African mammal collection at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
1911-14 Construction on New York home at 1 East 70th Street, now The Frick Collection, takes place under the direction of New York architects Carrère & Hastings.
1913 Childs Frick marries Frances Dixon. Eventually the couple settles in Roslyn, Long Island with their four children, Adelaide, Frances, Martha, and Henry Clay Frick II.
1914 Mr. and Mrs. Frick and Helen Clay Frick move into their new home on Fifth Avenue.
1919 December 2, Henry Clay Frick dies.
1920 Helen Clay Frick founds the Frick Art Reference Library.
1927 Helen Clay Frick establishes the Henry Clay Frick Department of the History of Art and Architecture and the fine arts library at the University of Pittsburgh
1928 Helen Clay Frick establishes the Westmoreland-Fayette Historical Society (now West Overton Museums).
1931 October 4, Adelaide Howard Childs Frick dies.
1935 The Frick Collection opens.
1950s Helen Clay Frick makes various updates to Clayton’s interior and furnishings.
ca. 1955 Helen Clay Frick builds the Carriage Museum at Clayton and retrieves family carriages from Eagle Rock.
1959 After years of discussion, plans are approved for a new building at the University of Pittsburgh to house the Henry Clay Frick Department of the History of Art and Architecture along with the library and a small teaching collection.

Go to: 1961 - Present