Henry Clay Frick: An Intimate Portrait

How one of the most notorious turn-of-the-century robber barons, the ""shoot-to-kill"" strikebreaker Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), amassed what is arguably the greatest collection of Old Master paintings in New York is a paradox that is difficult to explain. Nearly killed twice--by scarlet fever as a child and later an anarchist's bullet--the unlovable Frick gloomily marches through this illustrated biography--written by his great granddaughter--achieving new heights of infamy, erecting 12-foot walls equipped with rifle holes around his factories and hiring Pinkerton detectives to strong-arm his employees. In Sanger's broadly psychoanalytical study, based on previously undisclosed family papers, the event that unlocks Citizen Frick's impulse to collect is the death of his young daughter Martha (nicknamed ""Rosebud""). Sanger often explains Frick's choice in paintings by finding latent references in them to the trauma of his daughter's demise. For example, Vermeer's Mistress and Maid, which shows the delivery of a letter, becomes a possible reminder to Frick of his anguished correspondence with his wife during his daughter's illness. This approach leaves many art historical questions open: Was the collection Frick's taste alone? What was the role of Roland Knoedler, Frick's dealer (handled summarily but not sufficiently)? How did Frick's taste compare to that of the other great industrialist-collectors of the period? Sanger does an admirable job of detailing Frick's ascent to power; as the life of a tycoon, her biography is eminently readable and informative. The mystery of how Frick managed to assemble one of the great collections of art on this continent, however, remains in large part unilluminated. 225 full-color and 145 b&w illustrations. (Oct.)