Frederick Stuart Church's works hang in public and and private collections throughout the country. (He should not be confused, however, with the better known Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church). Church did primarily fantasy art incorporating women or children and animals. He did advertising illustrations and illustrations for several magazines of the period. Some copies of these illustrations are in this collection while others may be found in the original periodicals located in the Library's general periodicals. He did sketches on letters to family, friends, patrons and others, some of which are located in other GRPL archival collections. He is also known to have done portraits of family members, patrons and friends, which are only included in this collection within reference documents.

The Frederick Stuart Church Collection primarily documents the gift of Church's work from the Estate of famous art patron Charles L. Freer in 1920. The Freer donation includes two framed paintings, one of which is “Knowledge is Power,” one of the best known of Frederick S. Church's work today. Also found are etchings, reproductions and photographs, which are currently housed in buckram folders by an apparently locally assigned volume. A list of the items assigned to each volume shows that one item was removed sometime before 1999 and its location is unknown. As other accessions of F.S. Church materials are discovered in the Library's holdings, they are being added or documented in this collection. Also, images or items associated with the Church family continue to be discovered or better documented, often providing additional reference resources for Church researchers. Added to this collection are items found to contain illustrations of Church works, as well as copied or digital reference reproductions contributed by Church researchers Dale and Rosie Horst, Deborah V. Hobler and others.

The Archives at the Grand Rapids Public Library has objects and information of national/international significance in various collections. But, the combination of both a nationally and internationally known Grand Rapids born artist with an internationally known art patron from Detroit, Michigan, places this collection in a more national usage community.