NEW YORK, NY.- The Frick’s Center for the History of Collecting announces a new book series with the publication of its first volume, Holland’s Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals. This series, entitled The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Collecting, is co-published with the Pennsylvania State University Press, and will ultimately cover a broad range of art collecting, reflecting the Center's reach well beyond the parameters of the Frick's own scope to include topics on modern and non-western art. Comments Inge Reist, Director of the Center, “We aim to encourage new scholarship in this young field of art history through our annual acclaimed symposia and ongoing fellowship program, much of which leads to new publications. Complementing that activity is this series that enables the Center to make its own contribution to the growing bibliography on the history of collecting in America.” This and future volumes are drawn from papers given at the Center’s symposia. Upcoming books from recent events include A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Painting in America (February 2015), edited by Inge Reist; Going for Baroque: Americans Collect Italian Paintings of the 17th and 18th Centuries, edited by Edgar Peters Bowron; and The Americas Revealed: Collecting Colonial and Modern Latin American Art in the United States, edited by Edward Sullivan.

Americans have long had an interest in the art and culture of Holland’s Golden Age. As a result, the United States can boast extraordinary holdings of Dutch paintings. Celebrated masters such as Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, and Frans Hals are exceptionally well represented in museums and private collections, but many fine paintings by their contemporaries can be found here as well. Says Esmée Quodbach, Assistant Director of the Center, “the exceptionally enthusiastic response the Center received for its symposium on the history of Dutch paintings in America, both from professionals in the field and the general public, made it clear that there is an interest in the art of Golden Age Holland that has not waned since its halcyon days a century ago. A volume of essays dedicated to the American taste for Dutch painting seemed a logical next step.” In this groundbreaking publication, edited by Quodbach, fourteen noted American and Dutch scholars examine the allure of seventeenth-century Dutch painting to Americans over the past centuries. In addition to Quodbach, contributions by Ronni Baer, Quentin Buvelot, Lloyd DeWitt, Peter Hecht, Lance Humphries, Walter Liedtke, Louisa Wood Ruby, Catherine B. Scallen, Annette Stott, Peter C. Sutton, Dennis P. Weller, Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., and Anne T. Woollett explain in lively detail why and how American collectors as well as museums turned to the Dutch masters to enrich their collections. They examine the role played by Dutch settlers in colonial America and their descendants, the evolution of the American appreciation of the Dutch school, the circumstances that led to the Dutch school swiftly becoming one of the most coveted national schools of painting, and, finally, the market for Dutch pictures today. Richly illustrated, this volume is an invaluable contribution to the scholarship on the collecting history of Dutch art in America, and it is certain to inspire further research.