America produces Captains of Industry of every shape and
flavour as we have seen recently with Steve Jobs, Donald Trump and Dick Fuld.
Few of them are plaster saints and in the 19th and early 20th
century, roughly in The Gilded Age, a
collection of highly acquisitive individuals dominated the US business world
(“Robber barons” to their enemies)’ One such was Henry Clay Frick said in 1892
to have earned the accolade as “the most hated man in America” and the target
that year of a determined assassination attempt. Yet he died in his bed in
1919 a highly respected connoisseur of art and benefactor of his nation, a
transformed man indeed.
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| Henry Clay Frick |
Henry Clay Frick
(1849-1919) was born of Mennonite German stock in Southern Pennsylvania. His
grandfather was a successful distiller but his father’s business ventures were
not fruitful and his upbringing was relatively poor. With cousins, Henry set up
a coking business supplying the rapidly growing steel industry in his state. He
prospered and moved to a large house in Pittsburgh. He soon bought out his
cousins and he met Scots-born Andrew Carnegie just getting into his stride as
one of America’s leading steelmakers. Frick and Carnegie became commercial
partners and earned riches together, although their relationship was often
rocky.
Frick knew all the leading lights in Pittsburgh and he
invited 60 of them to join the South Fork Club, an exclusive social and fishing
resort he had created on a lake within a redundant dam, holding back the Little
Conemaugh River 14 miles up-river from the town of Johnstown. The Club was
tardy in its repairs to the dam, the largest earthen dam in America. After a
storm, the dam broke in 1889 and 2,209 people were killed, one of the worst
civil calamities ever to strike America. Frick swore his friends to silence
about the neglected repairs: they led and financed much of the relief
operation. The Club denied any liability and won its case. The law was
tightened up subsequently but Frick was fortunate to escape this Johnstown Flood episode unpunished.
In his role as partner of Carnegie, Frick was in charge of the
Homestead steel mill, near
Pittsburgh. Labour relations had been difficult as Homestead’s introduction of
the Bessemer steel smelting technique undermined the importance of the
traditional artisan steelworkers. A confrontation between staunchly anti-union
Frick and the striking men provoked violence. The men were armed and Frick,
with Carnegie’s support, sent in 300 armed guards from Pinkerton’s detective
agency. There were various skirmishes leading to 12 deaths; the Pinkerton men
surrendered, but the state militia intervened in favour of the employers. Then
a Russian anarchist with no connection to the union burst into Frick’s office,
shot him twice and knifed him. Public opinion moved against the men and the
strike ended. The unions cast Frick as the villain of the piece and unions were
not fully recognised in law until FDR’s time.
After all this conflict it is not surprising that Frick
decided to leave Pittsburgh and concentrate on New York by 1905. He was to fall
out finally with Carnegie but may have been satisfied with the $30 million he received
in recompense. He was also the Chairman of, and largest stockholder in Penn
Central and an enormously rich man.
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| The Frick Collection building on Park Avenue and E. 70th Street, New York |
Frick had been a keen collector of American paintings in
Pittsburgh and in his vast house in Boston, but in common with other rich men
he turned his thoughts to a great collection of Old Masters and European
furniture. There are strong echoes of the Wallace Collection in Hertford House,
London in Frick’s taste and display. The Wallace is the larger collection but
Frick’s paintings are more than a match.
He had bought a block in Manhattan opposite Central Park and
he built there a magnificent neo-classical building, designed to display his
collection. It was completed by 1914 but Frick only lived there 5 years, dying
in 1919. His collection suited his personal tastes – he liked beauty in all its
forms, portraits, landscapes - he would wander around the paintings at night -
he was less interested in wars or mythology.
So the visitor sees wonderful works by Vermeer. Titian,
Rembrandt, Hals and Holbein (the celebrated portraits of persecutors Thomas
More and Thomas Cromwell), lovely pieces by Veronese and El Greco. My cherished
Rococo period has a ravishing Fragonard Room and delights from Boucher and
Tiepolo. English painters are much in evidence with rows of Gainsboroughs,
Romneys and Turners. Nothing upsets the eye, or perhaps challenges the
intellect overmuch, and the paintings are complemented with exquisite French 18th
century furniture, Limoges enamels and Sevres porcelain. One leaves deeply
satisfied, as if by a great feast.
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| The Secret Meeting by Fragonard |
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| Autumn by Boucher |
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| The Harbour of Dieppe by J W M Turner |
Frick’s bequest of his collection to the nation after his
wife died in 1931, was an act of great generosity. Many of his kind of
businessman in America followed to some degree Carnegie’s dictum: “The man who
dies rich, dies dishonoured!” Thus endowments flowed from the likes of
Rockefeller, Mellon, J P Morgan and Vanderbilt.
Philanthropy still flourishes in America, one of her most
attractive feature. Bankers, hedge fund managers, big pharma moguls,
cyber-kings and other multi-talented persons open their wallets with generous
abandon. In my banking days, I knew one such, the late Dr Mortimer Sackler, a
confirmed Anglophile, whose endowed galleries grace The Met in New York, The
National Gallery in London and more modest establishments in Oxbridge. He was a
most charming man bringing beauty to our world, just as Henry Clay Frick
created a bright jewel with his wonderful Collection.
SMD
22.10.15
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015
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