Customer Reviews

Helen Clay Frick: Bittersweet Heiress

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought and read "Helen Clay Frick-Bittersweet Heiress" because I greatly enjoyed the author's previous work published in 1998, "Henry Clay Frick-An Intimate Portrait".These books are large,"Helen" is 9"x12", and they are published on very heavy glossy paper. This enhances the family photographs as well as selected works of art that fit in with the biography. Do not let the size of either book or their many pictures of art treasures frighten you away if you are looking for a biography. Both books are outstanding biographies, filled with money,violence,greed,contention,love,charity,a whisp of incest,treachery,and eccentric behavior.Henry Frick's involvement with the 19th Century steel industry and attendant labor problems is told well in both books."Helen" is written through the eyes of Helen and continues the family biography after the death of Henry in 1919.The historical scope of "Helen" is from the beginning of Henry's business career in 1875 to Helen's death in 1984.

The author exceeds the expected in every respect with both of the two books that I have mentioned. The books are lovingly written with much interesting detail about Henry and Helen ,including a generous assortment of warts and foibles.The author has been courageous on a number of her forays into her family's history...she motored through some rather tricky areas about friends and family members that she will no doubt encounter from time to time.The art work and other pictures were a priceless addition to the narrative and were introduced in exactly the right place in each book.Reading "Helen Clay Frick" is a poignant journey about a young woman that began life as a loving daughter and care giver and ended it as a very wealthy but eccentric and demanding woman.

I stumbled upon this in my local library as I was hunting for another biography and spent many evenings absorbed in Martha Frick Symington Sanger's beautifully written account of her Aunt's Life. (The author is, I believe, actually the grandniece of Helen Frick.)

In addition to interviews, Martha Sanger must have collected, and then compiled in chronological order, everything her aunt had ever written and every letter she had ever received in order to write this detailed and intimate life story. The more I read, the more I admired Helen Frick, although I became quite frustrated with the treatment she received from the Board of Directors of the Frick Art Museum and John D. Rockefeller in particular.

In addition to the inspired chronicle of her aunt's life, Sanger has masterfully included a reproduction of nearly every painting that is mentioned, (i.e. those rejected and those recommended by Helen Frick for acquisition) making this a rich and satisfying reading experience. The book is heavy, weighing in at nearly seven pounds, and appears to be a "coffee table book," due to its large size. But this is a book of substance about a "woman of substance," written by an author with substantial ability and the strength and endurance that must have been required in order to bring her vision of this biography into print.

Incredibly, the author was in litigation for three and a half years (with the Frick Art Reference Library) in order to secure high-quality prints from the Helen Clay Frick Foundation Archives to gain permission to reproduce them in this book. Thanks to Mrs. Sanger's perseverance, we have a historical record of one of America's benefactors.

[[ASIN:0822943417 Helen Clay Frick: Bittersweet Heiress]
Any one who likes History of Pittsburgh will find this book full of interesting little known facts. Easy read. Much information about the Frick Museum in N. Y.]