Helen Clay Frick: Bittersweet Heiress (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A visual treat. This impeccable and impartial biography limns the characteristics of Helen, who was an exceptional woman."
--The Feminist Review

“With studious care, Martha Sanger portrays the life of her resolute great-aunt, whose qualities and disappointments, especially at the end of her life, make a lasting impression.”
--Everett Fahy, former director of the Frick Collection, current John Pope-Hennessy Chairman, European Paintings Department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

"For obvious reasons, relatives of famous people often write poor biographies of them. Sanger, however, is the consummate professional in this fair, warts-and-all portrait of her great-aunt, Helen Clay Frick, the steel-industry heiress, art patron, and champion of New York's famed Frick Collection and its related art reference library."
--Booklist

Product Description

In 1919, at the age of thirty-one, Helen Clay Frick inherited $38 million, becoming the richest single woman in America. These riches, however, came at a price. Helen's tumultuous early life was shaped by her father's infamy as a union strikebreaker and the ensuing attempt on his life, her mother's debilitating depression, and the death of her older sister and newborn brother about a year apart. Despite these events, Helen built a luminous legacy through her lifelong commitment to social welfare, the environment, and a supreme devotion to the visual arts.

Helen's philanthropy touched the lives of thousands. Her contributions included a vacation home for young female textile workers, two wildlife preserves, one a public wilderness park, a Victorian-era house museum, a pre-Civil War historic Mennonite village, a university fine arts department, two art history libraries, and the purchase of many significant works of art for her private collection, the Frick Collection in New York, the University of Pittsburgh teaching collection, and the Frick Art Museum.

Through extensive period research and singular access to Frick family archives and Helen Clay Frick's personal writings, Martha Frick Symington Sanger fashions a multifaceted portrait of a complex, often misunderstood, yet indomitable humanitarian, philanthropist, and cultural force in twentieth-century America.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 386 pages
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press; 1 edition (November 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822943417
• ISBN-13: 978-0822943419
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #84,775 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Biography: A Class Act, September 28, 2008

By	A. J. Colyer (Maryland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars helen Clay Frick, Bittersweet Heiress, May 27, 2009

By	M. Gavaghan - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

[[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.]