Helen Clay Frick was an American philanthropist and art collector. She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the third child of the coke and steel magnate Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) and his wife, Adelaide Howard Childs (1859–1931). Two of her siblings did not reach adulthood, and her father favored her over his other surviving child, Childs Frick (1883–1965). After the reading of their father's will, which greatly benefited Helen, the brother and sister were estranged for the rest of their lives.