The Frick Collection Museum and Library, NYC

Even standing in the pouring rain (im)patiently waiting for the massive wooden doors to open could not diminish my anticipation of walking through those doors into the newly redesigned Frick Museum, housed in the magnificent Beaux-Arts mansion on Manhattan’s upper  Fifth Avenue close to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The mansion was originally envisioned by Henry Clay Frick (1849-1914) as his home and a showplace for his art collection.

Called The Frick Collection, it includes some of the world’s most renowned and beloved paintings from the Renaissance through the late 19th century. The building itself is a world treasure. It’s a throwback to the Gilded Age of American capitalists who accumulated vast fortunes prior to the imposition of Federal income taxes and spent those fortunes on magnificent homes filled with even more magnificent treasures.

We owe a great gratitude to Frick for his vision of sharing his art with the public, perhaps taking a playbill from the philanthropy of his friend and business associate, Andrew Carnegie, during the years before their historic split.

While this redesign of the building isn’t the first enlargement since the mansion was built to incorporate the growing collection and the Frick Art Research Library, it’s the most extensive redesign.

Officials say, “The mission of the Frick Art Research Library is to provide public access to materials and programs focused on the study of fine and decorative arts created in the European tradition from the fourth through the twentieth century, as well as art from around the world that has been influenced by, or had an influence on, this tradition. The library serves an international research community and supports scholarly and programmatic initiatives throughout The Frick Collection.”

Frick was born into a Mennonite family in rural southwestern Pennsylvania. His family’s farm was very near the center of the famous Pennsylvania coal fields that eventually launched his career as a major player in the golden age of American industrialists. His entrepreneurial spirit catapulted him into becoming one of the shining stars of the age.

His love of art and accumulation of works was a driving force early on. When he moved his family to New York City from Pittsburgh and commissioned his home on the upper east side of Manhattan, it was constructed with the commendable idea of being turned into a museum after he and his family passed.

The scope of 19th and 20th century masterworks and objets d’art that Frick was able to accumulate is mind-boggling for one private collector. The collection is vast but the standouts are the revealing self portraits of Rembrandt and the three canvases out of the 34 paintings in total attributed to Johannes Vermeer.

There are works by Titian, William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, John Constable, Francisco de Goya, El Greco, and the Flemish school of portrait paintings. There is a series of Joseph Mallord William Turner’s landscapes and seascapes and the masterwork painting of St. Francis in the Desert by Giovanni Bellini. Hanging side by side are Paolo Veronese’s duel immense canvases of allegorical scenes of virtue and vice.

Scattered throughout the museum on intricately carved wooden tables and chests are spectacular bronze statues and amazing flower arrangements that are reminiscent of the bouquets that were on display when the museum first opened in 1935. This time, however, the arrangements are porcelain flowers created by sculptor Vladimir Kanevsky. 

Now on display on the previously “closed to visitors” second floor, there is a room dedicated to spectacular clocks and watches, another to medals. Chinese, German, and French porcelain ceramics have a dedicated room with more “seeming to float off the wall” at the first floor Portico Gallery opposite the windows facing the Fifth Avenue Garden.

A must stop at the center of the first floor is the Garden Court that offers a calm respite to the overwhelming grandeur of the museum’s contents. 

Also on the first floor is the Jean-Honore Fragonard room, whose walls are covered with the well-known panels of frolicking lovers entitled “The Progress of Love.” This work was commissioned by Madame du Barry herself, the last mistress of Henry XV of France.

But the voluptuous Rococo pastoral scenes on the second floor painted by François Boucher stole my heart. The Boucher room was originally the bedroom of Frick’s wife, Adelaide, and you can only imagine the delight she took in being surrounded by these alluring scenes of love and romance.

Next is the Impressionist room featuring works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, and Edgar Degas. The second floor also sports a Museum Shop and a soon-to-be-opened café, neither of which existed prior to the restoration.

While wandering through the galleries, it isn’t hard to imagine Frick, his family, and friends enjoying the fruits of his wealth and his supreme good taste. It’s wonderful that the public is able to visit this jewel of a museum just as Frick always intended.