On this fourth lecture of our series of art talks about American Women Collectors, we will discuss the lives of Marjorie Merriweather Post and Helen Clay Frick.

Marjorie Merriweather Post was the heiress of the Post cereal empire. She became from a young age America’s most successful businesswomen. During the second decade of the 20th century, Marjorie started collecting art and she developed a particular taste for the arts of the late eighteenth century France. In the 1930s, she spent several months in the Soviet Union and the fine and decorative arts of imperial Russia appealed to her taste. Throughout her life, Marjorie decorated several houses and apartments but none are as grandiose as the legacy she left in the neo-Georgian house in Washington D.C. known as Hillwood.

Helen Clay Frick expressed an interest in art from a very young age. She dedicated her life to philanthropic pursuits and the study of art history. Helen was instrumental in the establishment of the Frick Collection in New York, which consisted mainly of her father’s collection.