Frary, I. T. (Ihna Thayer) (1873-1965)

Dates

• Existence: 1873 - 1965

Biography

I. T. Frary, a Cleveland native, served the Museum as Membership Secretary and Publicity Secretary from 1921 to 1937, and from 1937 to 1945 as Membership Secretary. He was made Membership Secretary Emeritus in 1945 and retired in 1946. He was a prominent designer, author, photographer, teacher, and architectural historian. He taught at the Cleveland School of Art (where he had studied), the John Huntington Polytechnic Institute and the School of Architecture of Western Reserve University. Before his career at the Museum, Frary worked as an interior decorator and furniture designer for the Brooks Household Art Company (later Rorimer-Brooks Studios) from 1894 until 1914, when he became an independent designer as a specialist in church interior decoration. In 1918 he was the associate education director for the Army YMCA in San Antonio, Texas where he prepared lectures and slide shows on the arts for men in army camps nearby. In 1920, Frary returned to Cleveland.

An accomplished photographer, Frary published books on architecture and early American history illustrated with his photographs: Thomas Jefferson: Architect and Builder (1931); Early Homes of Ohio (1936); Early American Doorways (1937); They Built the Capitol (1940); and Ohio in Homespun and Calico (1942). In 1943, with the completion of the Jefferson Memorial and the bicentennial of Jefferson’s birth, the Library of Congress mounted an exhibition of Frary’s photographs of Jefferson’s architectural works. Frary believed he photographed every building Jefferson designed, and made attributions not previously known to be Jefferson’s work. Fiske Kimball, architect, architectural historian and museum director, praised Frary’s work in his introduction to Thomas Jefferson: Architect and Builder.

In about 1942, the architectural historian Clarence Ward, director of Oberlin College’s Allen Memorial Art Museum and chair of the Art Department, organized an exhibition of Frary’s photographs titled "Early Architecture in Ohio." A collection of his photographs of early structures, held in the Oberlin College Archives, document architecture in twenty American states east of the Mississippi.

Frary’s expertise in historic structures and their documentation led to his work as Collaborator-at-large for the Historic American Buildings Survey of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and as a local advisor for the Federal Arts Project. He was an active member of numerous national professional societies and organizations, including the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities; American Association of Museums; American Institute of Architects (honorary member); Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society; The American Society of Architectural Historians; Western Reserve Historical Society (trustee); and Midwest Museums Conference. In addition, he was an active member of the Rowfant Club in Cleveland for 37 years, serving successively as Fellow, Vice President, and President.

Frary frequently gave public lectures for audiences and on the radio, and wrote magazine and newspaper articles on Jefferson, the Museum, and the arts in general. In “Retaining the Public’s Interest” for Museum News in 1936, Frary discussed the role of the Public Relations and Education Department in developing in museum visitors an appreciation for the history of art and the Museum’s exhibitions and enrichment programs, which lead naturally to membership and other forms of support. In 1936 and 1937, he offered lecture tours on colonial architecture in Washington, Baltimore, Annapolis and historic Virginia in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Upon his retirement in 1946, Frary and his wife moved to Winter Park, Florida. In 1959 he wrote his last book, At Large in Marble Halls, a humorous collection of essays on his years at the Museum. In 1963 Frary and his two sons gave the entire Frary photograph collection to the Ohio History Connection, composed of approximately 15,700 photographs, slides, and negatives spanning 1910 to 1960. These consist of architectural photography taken mainly for his books, portraits, Frary’s personal travels, his stint in the YMCA, and a wide variety of other topics of special interest to the photographer. The Ihna Thayer Frary Papers are housed at the Western Reserve Historical Society (MSS 3144) and the Ohio History Connection (MSS 203). Shortly before his death he donated a large collection of Jeffersonia to Rollins College in Florida. Frary died in 1965 in Winter Park.

-Biography by Anne Cuyler Salsich, July 31, 2024

Occupations

• Cleveland Museum of Art Staff Member
• Photographer
• Author

Places

• Ohio--Cleveland (Place of Birth)
• Florida--Winter Park (Place of Death)

Found in 9 Collections and/or Records: