On 17th April 2025 the Frick Collection on Fifth Avenue re-opens after a long period of redevelopment. When an old friend has a face lift, the results can be disconcerting. Happily, the impact here is, however, reassuringly subtle – as the splendid Gilded-age character of one of New York’s iconic cultural institutions has been retained, while elegant new facilities have been deftly integrated. 

All credit for what has been achieved is due to the Director, Ian Wardropper, and his colleagues. They have formed a most effective partnership with Seldorf Architects, the New York-based practice that is making a considerable impact across the art world (it is in the final stages of redeveloping the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, London). At the Frick everyone has been greatly assisted by the very considerable financial resources that underpin the project: over five years, $220 million has been spent on the renovation, with 60,000 square feet of space being restored and 27,000 square feet of new construction added – although in ways that do not dilute the identity of the mansion from the outside or internally (Fig.1). 

The attention to details is key to the nuanced and lasting effect of the work that has been undertaken; materials selected are all of the highest quality – whether these be the beautiful stone chosen for new flooring and doorways, or silk woven to enrich the walls (it was created at Prelle, the French manufactory that supplied the original building in 1914). Most importantly, the consequence of all this care is that the collection is given a refined and subtly lit home, which cleverly accommodates its heritage and allows for more display and exhibition space. A detailed review of the galleries will be published in a future issue of this Magazine, but it is fitting to comment here on the wider project and its benefits. 

Like all such capital schemes – especially when the institution concerned is much loved, if not revered – this one has at times been controversial. Objections were raised, adjustments had to be made and delays were encountered. However, memories of such debates will surely be swept aside by the triumphant outcome. Such issues were also cleverly countered while the renovation was underway by the bold and imaginative temporary housing of the collection in the Brutalist Breuer building on Madison Avenue (which is now due to become a headquarters for Sotheby’s).[1] This will long be remembered for affording new perspectives on familiar masterpieces and liberating them from the mansion’s more domestic setting. 

Exploring the Frick’s treasures again back in their home, visitors will be more comfortably accommodated than in the past in a larger entrance hall (Fig.3). It used to be the case that when you entered the galleries your tour was confined to the first floor and – unless you were a curator or privileged guest – although you could tantalisingly see the magnificent bronze staircase (Fig.2), you could never ascend it. Now access to it will be a key part of the experience for all and will also facilitate better circulation around the building. Upstairs rooms that were once family bedrooms and the director’s office have been repurposed. They form a charming sequence of ten new galleries that are arranged thematically, thereby highlighting particular areas of the collection as well as recent gifts – which include magnificent historic medals and French faience. The paintings by François Boucher are also re-installed here, in an intimate room overlooking Central Park, and so are returning to the position they enjoyed during the lifetime of Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919). 

Temporary exhibitions used to be mounted in the rather dark and confined basement galleries; such projects are now given a purposebuilt space on the first floor, which is much more expansive, lighter and flexible. Launching a series of shows that contextualise important works in the collection, it will first house Vermeer’s Love Letters (18th June–8th September), which features major loans from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, as well as the Frick’s own Mistress and maid (Fig.4) by Johannes Vermeer. Complementing all this you will be able to enjoy lectures and performances in the new 220- seat auditorium, which, designed in an organic, ovoid form, is ingeniously hidden away beneath the Russell Page Garden. A music festival for the spring has been announced. Opportunities to learn about the collection for students and adults will also be greatly assisted by the opening of a new education room – the first to be included in the building. 

As well as these public-facing facilities, high above the galleries are more specialised, research spaces: the refurbished reading rooms of the Frick Art Research Library and a new and very well-equipped conservation studio (Fig.6), to be used especially for sculpture and decorative arts – which is larger than that enjoyed by most museums of this size. 

Context for all this ambitious redevelopment is provided by a range of new publications. Among them is one that helpfully plots the broader evolution of the collection – The Fricks Collect: An American Family and the Evolution of Taste in the Gilded Age (2025).[2] It explores the collecting of Frick and his daughter Helen Clay Frick (1888–1984) and their interactions with art dealers, architects and interior decorators. It recounts a welltold tale of wealth and the single-minded pursuit of excellence, where business acumen fired up the thrill of the chase after works of art. As an interesting aside it also briefly considers ‘the ones that got away’ – great paintings that Frick was not able to secure. Perhaps most celebrated of these was Holbein’s Portrait of Christina of Denmark, which ended up the National Gallery, London.[3] Less well known, but nonetheless intriguing, was his entirely understandable interest in possibly acquiring during the First World War the great Bridgewater Titians – Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto (National Gallery, London, and National Galleries of Scotland). In 1916 an offer of £160,000 was made for them, along with the artist’s The ages of man and Venus Anadyomene, but this was not deemed to be enough. Apparently, if £400,000 had been on the table the outcome might have been rather different. The seemingly inexhaustible transference of great art across the Atlantic at the time did have its limits. 

It was in November of 1914 that the Fricks moved into their new mansion (up until that point they had been renting a Vanderbilt residence on Fifth Avenue). It had been designed for them by Thomas Hastings (1860–1929) and was finished in magnificent style and at astronomical cost. The monies spent on it, however, were far exceeded by those lavished on the collection itself. Frick’s pride in his collection is conveyed especially well by Gerald Kelly’s later portrait of him amid his purchases (Fig.5); it shows the collector standing between his portraits by Velázquez and El Greco and beside some of his outstanding bronzes. It was intended to evoke his habit of quietly communing with his prized possessions at night, cigar in hand. This rarified private realm first became a public museum in December of 1935. Ninety years later, it has been given a new lease of life in a manner that it is reasonable to assume Mr Frick and his daughter would have entirely approved of.

[1] E. Pergam: ‘The Frick reframed’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 163 (2021), pp.536–39. 

[2] I. Wardropper: The Fricks Collect, An American Family and The Evolution of Taste in the Gilded Age, New York 2025. 

[3] R. Finocchio: ‘Saving face: Henry Clay Frick’s pursuit of Holbein portraits’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 150 (2008), pp.91–97.