The Frick Collection is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. A ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Its permanent collection (normally at the

Henry Clay Frick House The Henry Clay Frick House was the residence of the industrialist and art patron Henry Clay Frick in New York City. The mansion is located between 70th and 71st Street and Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was constructed in 1 ...

, currently at the

Frick Madison 945 Madison Avenue, also known as the Breuer Building, is a museum building in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The Marcel Breuer-designed structure was built from 1964 to 1966 as the third home for the Whitney Museum of America ...

) features

Old Master In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

paintings and European fine and decorative arts, including works by Bellini, Fragonard,

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...

Holbein Hans Holbein may refer to: * Hans Holbein the Elder Hans Holbein the Elder ( , ; german: Hans Holbein der Ältere; – 1524) was a German painter. Life Holbein was born in free imperial city of Augsburg (Germany), and died in Issenheim, Alsa ...

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...

Turner Turner may refer to: People and fictional characters *Turner (surname), a common surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Turner (given name), a list of people with the given name *One who uses a lathe for turni ...

, Velázquez,

Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime, he was a moderately succe ...

Thomas Gainsborough Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of ...

, and many others. The museum was founded by the industrialist

Henry Clay Frick Henry Clay Frick (December 19, 1849 – December 2, 1919) was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a maj ...

(1849–1919), and its collection has more than doubled in size since opening to the public in 1935. The Frick also houses the

Frick Art Reference Library The Frick Art Reference Library is the research arm of The Frick Collection. Its reference services have temporarily relocated to the Breuer building at 945 Madison Avenue, called Frick Madison, during the renovation of the Frick's historic build ...

, a premier art history research center established in 1920 by

Helen Clay Frick Helen Clay Frick (September 2, 1888 – November 9, 1984) 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 ...

(1888–1984).

History

The Frick Collection became a public institution when

bequeathed his art collection, as well as his Upper East Side residence at 1 East 70th Street, to the public for the enjoyment of future generations. Frick started his substantial collection as soon as he began amassing his fortune. A considerable portion of his art collection is located in his former residence “Clayton” in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, which is today a part of the

Frick Art & Historical Center The Frick Pittsburgh is a cluster of museums and historical buildings located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States and formed around the Frick family's nineteenth-century residence known as "Clayton". It focuses on the interpretation of t ...

. Another part was given by his daughter and heiress Helen to the

Frick Fine Arts Building The Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building is a landmark Renaissance villa and a contributing property to the Schenley Farms-Oakland Civic Historic District on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Th ...

, which is on the campus of the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

. The family did not permanently move from Pittsburgh to New York until 1905. Henry Frick initially leased the William H. Vanderbilt House at 640

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

, to which he moved a substantial portion of his collection. He had his permanent residence built between 1912 and 1914 by Thomas Hastings of

Carrère and Hastings Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère ( ; November 9, 1858 – March 1, 1911) and Thomas Hastings (architect), Thomas Hastings (March 11, 1860 – October 22, 1929), was one of the outstanding American Beaux-Arts architecture, Be ...

. He stayed in the house until his death in 1919. He willed the house and all of its contents, including the works of art, furniture, and decorative objects, as a public museum. His widow Adelaide Howard Childs Frick, however, retained the right of residence and continued living in the mansion with her daughter Helen. After Adelaide Frick died in 1931, the conversion of the house into a public museum started.

John Russell Pope John Russell Pope (April 24, 1874 – August 27, 1937) was an American architect whose firm is widely known for designing major public buildings, including the National Archives and Records Administration building (completed in 1935), the Jeff ...

altered and enlarged the building in the early 1930s to adapt it to use as a public institution. It opened to the public on December 16, 1935. Various additions to the architecture and landscape architecture of the museum site have been considered over the years including the placement of a prominent magnolia garden from the 1930s. As stated by the museum announcements: "As a result of a decision of the Board of Trustees in 1939, three magnolias were selected for the Fifth Avenue garden. The two trees on the lower tier are Saucer Magnolias ( Magnolia soulangeana) and the species on the upper tier by the flagpole is a Star Magnolia (

Magnolia stellata ''Magnolia stellata'', sometimes called the star magnolia, is a slow-growing shrub or small tree native to Japan. It bears large, showy white or pink flowers in early spring, before its leaves open. This species is closely related to the Kobushi ...

)." Further expansions of the museum took place in 1977 and in 2011. In 2014, the museum announced further expansion plans, but came up against community opposition because it would result in the loss of a garden. The Frick ultimately dropped those plans and is said to be considering other options. In March 2021, the Collection temporarily relocated to Frick Madison, at the

Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981), was a Hungarian-born modernist architect and furniture designer. At the Bauhaus he designed the Wassily Chair and the Cesca Chair, which ''The New York Times'' have called some of the most im ...

-designed building at

945 Madison Avenue 945 Madison Avenue, also known as the Breuer Building, is a museum building in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The Marcel Breuer-designed structure was built from 1964 to 1966 as the third home for the Whitney Museum of Ameri ...

, during the renovation of the Henry Clay Frick House.

Collection

The Frick is one of the preeminent small art museums in the United States, with a high-quality collection of

old master In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

paintings and fine furniture housed in nineteen galleries of varying size within the former residence. Frick had intended the mansion to become a museum eventually, and a few of the paintings are still arranged according to Frick's design. Besides its permanent collection, the Frick has always organized small, focused temporary exhibitions.Carol Vogel (September 7, 1998)
Director Tries Gentle Changes For the Frick
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. The collection features some of the best-known paintings by major European artists as well as numerous works of

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...

. It also has 18th-century

French furniture French furniture comprises both the most sophisticated furniture made in Paris for king and court, aristocrats and rich upper bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and French provincial furniture made in the provincial cities and towns many of which, like ...

Limoges Limoges (, , ; oc, Lemòtges, locally ) is a city and Communes of France, commune, and the prefecture of the Haute-Vienne Departments of France, department in west-central France. It was the administrative capital of the former Limousin region ...

enamel, and

Oriental rug An oriental rug is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in " Oriental countries" for home use, local sale, and export. Oriental carpets can be pile woven or flat woven without pile, using v ...

s. After Frick's death, his daughter,

, and the Board of Trustees expanded the collection: nearly half of the collection's artworks have been acquired since 1919. Although the museum cannot lend the works of art that belonged to Frick, as stipulated in his will, The Frick Collection does lend artworks and objects acquired since his death. Included in the collection are

Jean-Honoré Fragonard Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732 (birth/baptism certificate) – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific ar ...

's masterpiece ''The Progress of Love'', three paintings by

Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , #Pronunciation of name, see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period Painting, painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle class, middle-class life. ...

including '' Mistress and Maid'', two paintings by

Jacob van Ruisdael Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (; 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural ach ...

including '' Quay at Amsterdam'', and

Piero della Francesca Piero della Francesca (, also , ; – 12 October 1492), originally named Piero di Benedetto, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca i ...

's ''St. John the Evangelist''.

Temporary exhibits

When the

Mauritshuis The Mauritshuis (; en, Maurice House) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Vermeer ...

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

was under reconstruction in 2013 some of its works, including

's '' Girl with a Pearl Earring'' and Carel Fabritius's '' The Goldfinch'', toured the United States and, in New York, were exhibited at the Frick.

Frick Art Reference Library

The Frick Collection oversees the nearby

. The collections held at the library focus on art of the Western tradition from the fourth century to the mid-twentieth century, and chiefly include information about paintings, drawings, sculpture, prints, and illuminated manuscripts. Archival materials augment its research collections. Prior to opening in 1924, Helen Clay Frick used the basement bowling alley as storage space for the library. The library quickly became known as a prime resource for students.

Management

Attendance

According to ''

The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...

'', the Frick Collection has a typical annual attendance of 275,000 to 300,000.

Governance

In 2011, Ian Wardropper succeeded

Anne Poulet Anne Poulet (born March 20, 1942) is a retired American art historian. Poulet is an expert in the area of French art, particularly sculpture. In her career, she organized two major monographic exhibitions on the French sculptors Clodion and ...

, who had run the Frick Collection as director since 2003. Poulet took the position after Samuel Sachs II stepped down after running the institution for six years. Poulet was the first female director of the Frick.Carol Vogel (September 22, 2010)
Director of Frick Collection Will Retire in Fall of 2011
''

''. During her time at the Frick Collection, Poulet increased the museum’s small

board of trustees A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

, adding 10 new members. She also introduced the Director’s Circle, a group of 44 members who each give a minimum of $25,000 a year to the Frick Collection, although many have made significantly larger contributions.

Funding

By 1997, the Frick Collection had an operating budget of $10 million and an endowment of $170 million. Despite its large endowment, the institution still needs money to preserve the building.

Education

In 2008, the Frick hired Rika Burnham as head of their education department. Burnham introduced several changes to the museum, including the introduction of monthly free entrance to the museum, called First Fridays. First Fridays include gallery talks and activities for visitors.

Artworks

Featured artists include: * Giovanni Bellini ('' St. Francis in Ecstasy'') * François Boucher *

Cimabue Cimabue (; ; – 1302), Translated with an introduction and notes by J.C. and P Bondanella. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Oxford World’s Classics), 1991, pp. 7–14. . also known as Cenni di Pepo or Cenni di Pepi, was an Italian painter a ...

John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; July 16, 1796 – February 22, 1875), or simply Camille Corot, is a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast ...

Aelbert Cuyp Aelbert Jacobszoon Cuyp () (20 October 1620 – 15 November 1691) was one of the leading Dutch Golden Age painters, producing mainly landscapes. The most famous of a family of painters, the pupil of his father Jacob Gerritszoon Cuyp (1594–1651 ...

Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...

Gentile da Fabriano Gentile da Fabriano ( – 1427) was an Italian painter known for his participation in the International Gothic painter style. He worked in various places in central Italy, mostly in Tuscany. His best-known works are his ''Adoration of the Magi'' ...

El Greco Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El G ...

Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depend ...

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...

Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, , ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group ...

Malvina Hoffman Malvina Cornell Hoffman (June 15, 1885July 10, 1966) was an American sculptor and author, well known for her life-size bronze sculptures of people. She also worked in plaster and marble. Hoffman created portrait busts of working-class people and ...

Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein the Younger ( , ; german: Hans Holbein der Jüngere; – between 7 October and 29 November 1543) was a Germans, German-Swiss people, Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered o ...

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ...

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "R ...

Andrea Riccio Andrea Riccio (1532) was an Italian sculptor and occasional architect, whose real name was Andrea Briosco, but is usually known by his sobriquet meaning "curly"; he is also known as Il Riccio and Andrea Crispus ("curly" in Latin). He is mainly k ...

Barna da Siena Barna da Siena, also known as Berna di Siena, was presumed to be a Sienese School, Sienese painter active from about 1330 to 1350. The painter was first referred to by Lorenzo Ghiberti in his ''I Commentarii'' (mid 15th century) as a Sienese p ...

* J. M. W. Turner *

Diego Velázquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...

Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh c ...

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. Ac ...

* James McNeill Whistler

Selected highlights

References

Notes Further reading *
Press Release
October 11, 2006, Retrieved November 8, 2013) * Bernice Davidson, Susan Galassi. ''Art in the Frick Collection : Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts''. Harry N Abrams. 1996. * Scala Publishers. ''Frick Collection: Handbook of Paintings''. Scala Arts & Heritage. 2006. * Bernice Davidson, Edgar Munhall, Nadia Tscherny. ''Paintings from the Frick Collection ''. Harry N. Abrams. 1991. * Colin B. Bailey. ''Fragonard's Progress of Love at The Frick Collection''. GILES. 2011. * Joseph Focarino. ''The Frick Collection, An Illustrated Catalogue. Volume IX: Drawings, Prints, and Later Acquisitions''. Frick Collection. 2003. *

Xavier Salomon Xavier F. Salomon (born 1979) is a British art critic and both Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator at the Frick Collection in New York. Born in Rome to an English mother and Danish father, he has British citizenship and is most not ...

, with Aimee Ng and Giulio Dalvit. ''Cocktails with a Curator: The Frick Collection''. New York: Rizzoli Electa. 2022.
Review

External links

*
Virtual tour of the Frick Collection
provided by Google Arts & Culture
The Frick Collection, Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America
* {{authority control 1935 establishments in New York City Art museums established in 1935 Art museums and galleries in New York City Fifth Avenue Former private collections in the United States Frick Art Reference Library Historic house museums in New York City Museums in Manhattan Upper East Side