The Frick Reopens: The Must-See Museum for Spring

With a line around the Upper East Side block, museumgoers waited with excitement and anticipation to be let into the newly reopened Frick Collection. Yes, the Frick is finally back in its original home. After half a decade of renovation led by Annabelle Selldorf, the esteemed Beaux Arts Mansion opened its grand doors on April 17th to the public once more.

Upon being welcomed by cherry blossom trees along Central Park East and in the Fifth Avenue garden, visitors who enter the grandiose marvel will feel transported into the Gilded Age. As if being invited into Mr. Frick’s home, the elegant entrance hall welcomes visitors into the warm reception era. Immediately, the building’s interior design language forms an impression. Dim lighting and maximalist interiors complement the artwork in ways people unfamiliar with the Frick may not understand. During the interim of the Frick’s renovation, the collection was on view for a stint at the brutalist Met Breuer, a remarkable contrast to the classical style of works featured in the collection. While the Breuer’s modern and cold structure was in complete opposition to the history of the paintings and sculptures, the mansion’s cozy and gilded rooms enhance the old-world masters and aristocratic grandeur of the collection.

Entrance Hall, The Frick Collection, New York
Photo: Nicholas Venezia

Reflecting the pageantry of the times, the ground floor of the mansion was the Frick family's formal entertaining space. A majestic candlelit stairwell beacons viewers upstairs to the private quarters, but not before exploring the main halls. A highlight is one dedicated to early sketches and renderings: a sketch of war by Goya, a Reubens rendering of Venus in three poses, and a unique Degas featuring a male model in the nude. The rich grand rooms surround the infamous interior garden courtyard, the only place where photographs are allowed.

Upon entering the sumptuous dining room, docents ask the visitors to be wary of the vase of purple flowers displayed on a table at the center. Some bend down to smell the florals and to their surprise, find out that the bouquet is an artwork of porcelain that is beyond lifelike. Viewers carry this awe as they move past Gainsborough portraits of aristocrats such as Frances Duncombe into the Fragonard room, a favorite of Mr. Frick’s wife, Adelaide Clay Frick, a devoted Rococo fan.

The Fragonard Room sets the tone for the rest of the house. Masterpiece rococo canvases by Fragonard cover the elaborately dressed eighteenth-century style room.

Commissioned in Madame du Barry, the famed mistress of French King Louis XV - The Pursuit, The Meeting, The Lover Crowned, and Love Letters are an ode to the mistress patron of art and her era of decadence.

Beyond the ornamental hall, the Living Hall and Library usher in a warmer ambiance. Wooden paneling and leather-bound volumes frame more stately Gainsboroughs and house family portraits, including one of Mr. Frick over the grand fireplace. It is difficult to choose which work stands out among such major works, but visitors should keep a keen eye out for Sir Thomas Moor and Thomas Cromwell, painted in likeness by Holbein the Younger.

The West Gallery emulates a traditional museum hall, similar to the Louvre and other standard exhibitions. Showcasing majestic sea landscapes by Turner, intimate Van Dykes, Vemeer’s pearl earrings in Mistress and Maid, and a couple of Reubens, the West Gallery is the ultimate collector’s flex. The Oval Room, sparse and yet significant, allows viewers to take in the ethereal elegance of feminine portraits. Favorites here include James McNeill Whistler’s effervescent Portrait of Lady Meux (Harmony in Pink and Grey) and Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland (Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink). On its right, the East Gallery highlights landscapes and scenes from the European continent.

In addition to such European works, wealthy American collectors such as Frick had a keen interest in fine Asian porcelain. On a darker note, they obsessed over “Oriental” designs from the East. The standard for America’s ruling class at the time was - the more exotic, the better. No medium is better suited to telling this story than the Portico Gallery. The demand for porcelain, nicknamed white gold, was rampant. The want for it reached such heights that high society carried a malaise de porcelain, French for porcelain fever. Originating from China, the fever for this art form soon spread to Europe. The first European hard-paste porcelain was produced in Meissen, near Dresden. Amassing a wide collection, Frick’s taste in Asian and European works can be seen through his chosen vessels. Complimenting the collection, light seeps through the glass portico from the cherry blossom-filled Fifth Avenue Garden, illuminating the dainty, vibrantly colored, and intricate porcelain displays. Despite their delicate form, these brilliant craftworks have stood the test of time, allowing porcelain viewers to gawk at their fine handwork, restored luster, and almost pristine condition.

The Frick is an important place for the study of ceramics beyond the original ceramics collection. Over the years, the museum has expanded its archive of ceramics and the medium’s study. Upstairs in the expanded Sidney Knafel collection, blue and white china known as faience, distinctive French ceramic art, showcases an example of the Frick Collection’s mission to continue the tradition of sharing work with the public. An Upper East Sider, Knafel found interest in the few French ceramics he had viewed in the vitrines at the Met Museum before embarking on a mission to source his collection. Primarily produced in the regions of Rouen, Lyons, and Nevers, the intricate French ceramics depict scenes of agricultural life, Chinese villages, and animal motifs like birds or fantasy creatures such as dragons. Knafel’s favorites include a large Never Midnight blue platter and a platter of finely-painted fishermen. Having bestowed his collection to the museum, Knafel's gesture echoes Henry Frick’s, who also opened his private collection to the public. These gestures have thus provided an opportunity for these phenomenal works to be appreciated en masse and studied by archivists within the research library, now accompanied by expanded education halls and an auditorium for lectures and events on the Frick. Knafel adds to the point that although much of art is acquired through those with significant, and sometimes even controversial means (in the case of Frick), those with the resources to acquire such extensive collections share the wonders with the rest of the world, inspiring artists and visitors who may not have equal means.

As one climbs up the royal staircase, its grandeur reminds visitors of how affluent the Frick Family was to afford such a collection. The rest of the upstairs, formerly the Frick family’s private living quarters, features small rooms with various highlights. A room that demonstrates Frick’s immense affluence is, without question, the Clocks and Watches room. It can be described as a tiny transition room, but it is packed with treasure. Gold pocket watches and ornate fabragé adjacent artisan clocks tell a story of great prosperity, brutal success, and generational investment. Any horologist will geek out at the clock's imaginative forms. The works include clocks of golden lions, rhinoceroses, and gazebo architectural structures. Ornamented in precious stones, diamonds, and gold, these are heirlooms worthy of the Gilded Age. Beyond being a practical tool, these vessels are true artisan masterworks meant to showcase affluence at its most obscene lengths.

If one cannot get lost in time staring at the diamond-encrusted clocks, visitors should also make their way into the tranquil corner Breakfast room, where pastoral scenes of the French countryside radically contrast the maximalist clocks. Oil paintings in rich earthy tones decorate the walls, celebrating the simplicity of farm and small village life. Here, luxury is depicted within stillness and restraint. Gazing upon the dark green strokes, viewers are transported to a small town river in Charles-François Daubigny’s Washerwomen at the Oise River Near Valmondois (1865). An ode to the local washer hands, landscapes like these depict a romantic and isolated nature, quite removed from the rapid and even violent industrialization which enriched Henry Clay Frick in one of capitalism’s most ambitious and turbulent eras.

Other signature rooms branch out of a long hallway with a muralized ceiling. The second floor is intimate and cozy, a testament to the inner life of the mansion and those who lived there. In contrast to the varied downstairs reception and entertaining areas, the sections on display are primarily categorized into various rooms based on design and artistic movements. There is something for everyone. Standouts include the Gold Grounds room of religious imagery, which showcases Crucifixion, a gift from John D. Rockefeller. In the Sitting Room, one can stare for hours at the remarkable miniature detail of Jan Van Eyk’s Virgin and Child, with Saints and Donor aka The Madonna of Jan Vos. This work is small but magnificent. Keep an eye out for the tiny details of the city in the back, accents on the crown’s jewels, the intricate tile works, the subject’s fine hair, tiny swans in the background, and the brocades and textures on the garments.

Furthermore, those with war and history at heart can visit the metals room, which showcases a fine array of metals from across the European continent. Stephen K. Collection of Commemorative Medals teaches visitors about the metals’Imagery such as heraldic, narrative, emblem, personal mark, and text. It is one of the world’s most significant collections of medals. According to the curation, metals contain historical references to European histories and identities. Geographic information on borders and regions around the territories conquered and held by Germany, France, and England is sourced from them.

In contrast, the Boucher Anteroom and Main Boucher Room will entice those who love frills, ribbons, and fashion. Not to miss is Lady on her Day Bed, a Sofia Coppola-coded Rococo dream, and Boucher, again, favored by the late Adeleine Clary Frick, and once long ago, her sitting room. Off of its side, take note of Eugene Carriere’s Motherhood, a more this-thing-is-not-like-the-others piece. The modern, smeared painting catches one’s eye with its evocative emotion and movement.

Ultimately, the taste and preference of Mr. Frick culminates in his former bedroom, renamed the Walnut Room. Dark and musty, here one will find, ironically, a painting that was not close to his heart, but is the front page of the Frick Collection’s reopening promotional campaign. The work is none other than the Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres portrait of Comtesse d’Haussonville (1845). Magnificently restored, Louise de Broglie, the painting’s youthful subject beckons the viewer beyond the frame. One can almost hear her whisper. Viewing the portrait is like the final scene of a film, but visitors should catch the museum’s version of a post-credit scene.