Visit by beginners Frick Collection exist New York CityThey may not know that the place was 5 years old, $330 million in renovation and expansion. It will officially reopen on Thursday, April 17, and Frick is more likely to make these visitors feel like they have stepped into the past.
This is a good thing-the charm of this smaller museum has always been its ability to destroy the space-time continuum.
Once home to the gilded-age millionaire Henry Clay Frick, the building is now the best time machine. Not only can you see the world-class art chosen by the Bandit Baron, his wife Adelaide Childs Frick and daughter Helen Clay Frick, but you can also see the 1910s mansion of the family created by Carrère and Hastings, two of the best architects and interior designers of the day.
Paintings by Rembrandt, Whistler, El Greco, Fragonard, Holbein and other masters are fixed on hand-woven French damasks and velvets, under carefully shaped, murals, murals and richly decorated ceilings, and are fixed near exquisite ancient vases and a wide variety of furniture.
Despite the addition of approximately 27,000 square feet of new construction and 60,000 square feet of repurchase space, life in these masterpieces has never been felt for too much imagination. All this is the first full upgrade of the Frick building since it opened to the public 90 years ago.
Of course there are some changes, and it is worth noting that past visitors are encouraged to circulate. This is an overview of some improvements to the Frick series, as well as some museums’ timeless miracles.
Art hidden in the obvious sight
One of the surprises of cheese is that the main works are everywhere, even in the corridors between galleries. Just as you enter the museum, you will see Tiepolo’s exquisite little paintings showing Perseus saving Andromeda from the sea monsters. Not far away, the two glowing vermeers of the series are flanked by a handsome portrait of Murillo on the wall (as shown above), facing the stairs.
gainsborough for digestion, Fragonard
The first gallery is set in the front dining room, living room and library of the mansion, and even if most of the furniture is no longer in the room, there are works of art that favor these settings.
In the dining room, there is a series of elegant, charming women, painted by Thomas Gainsborough, a very solemn dinner companion. The room has been refreshed, including the new hand-woven silk wall covering, but it has not changed before.
Ibid, the living room with frescoes of the Vlamentian walls (pictured above), a gift from King Louis XV of France to his mistress, Madame Doo Barry, who rejected their 18th-century taste. This puts the murals on a complicated path to ownership until Frick scoffs them. The library is another soothing space with artwork as well as hundreds of handsome leather.
The living room (pictured above) features several star attractions in the series, including El Greco’s shocking pink Saint Jerome, the marvelousness of Bellini St. Francis in the Desertand portraits of Hallbein Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell.
All of these works happen to hang where Flick himself placed, and you can see his sense of humor: more political rivals, Cromwell stares at each other from both sides of the fireplace.
Exquisite tableware that art cannot be used
In 2011, Frick decided to attach a porch and use it as a space to display fine porcelain. The exhibition has been reimagined by Marie-Laure Buku Pongo, assistant curator of Frick’s Decorative Arts. Buku Pongo took the museum’s coveted Meissen porcelain, plates and decorative items created by German manufacturers, which pioneered a method called Hard Paste Porcelain in the 18th century and set them on the walls of gallery-style formations.
They are scattered with ancient Chinese fragments and other porcelain, some in display cabinets. “Porcelain is forged at high temperatures,” Buku Pongo explained to me in a preview of Frick’s news. “So, unlike wooden furniture or paintings, they can be direct sunlight like this area.” The sunlight and spectacular porcelain make this small corridor an unusually pleasant place to stay.
The flower that will never die
When Frick was initially opened to the public in 1935, curators filled the mansion with flowers to commemorate the occasion. To reopen, the museum does something even more extravagant: it commissioned Ukrainian artist Vladimir Kanevsky to fill the gallery with surprisingly vivid porcelain flowers, as shown above.
The porcelain blossoms provide a celebration aspect for the reopening celebration and will be in place until October 6 (if no visitors accidentally destroyed them). How surprising these subtle sculptures are. Many people are located on the main sidewalk. Flowers are not cheap either, because when you visit the new second floor gift shop, you will find that comes with a price of $3,000 to $10,000.
West Gallery
The most similar museum in the gallery was customized in 1915, just to accommodate art. This long rectangular room has recently replaced the skylight and green velvet wallpaper, making the space look better than it has been in years. The Western Gallery presents highlights of the works of Rembrant, Villazx, Goya and Wilmer.
Also on the ground floor of the building: an indoor fountain area known as the Garden Court, the Whistler portrait is so active that you wouldn’t be surprised if the subjects immediately stepped out of the canvas.
The most magnificent on the stairs
In previous iterations, Frick almost started and ended on the first floor, with the second staircase on the majestic staircase bringing to visitors. no longer. Now, after checking the historic organ keyboard in the attachment next to the staircase, visitors are invited to take a closer look at the sculptural organ tubes built into the stairwell. Following the marble steps along the delicate slight railings, the once private family dormitory. (las, the organ cannot be played at the moment, but hopefully it will change in the future).
I recommend going up to the second level like the Fricks did. Additionally, Selldorf Architects seamlessly sewed an excellent job in a modern two-story building in the building’s upper town, installing a grooved new Breccia Aurora Aurora marble staircase. Walking to that, you’ll come to a cafe (the first to go to a cheese shop) and then re-enter the mansion, which will break the fantasy a little.
Please note that a new temporary exhibit gallery has also been added. Frick’s first temporary exhibition (opening on June 18) will showcase three love letters by Jan Vermeer. Next to the temporary exhibition space is the institution’s first dedicated education room, which will host regular art creations and lectures. In the basement, below Frick’s Garden, there is a state-of-the-art auditorium for performances and lectures.
Boucher Room
Adelaide Childs Frick’s private living room (pictured above) may be the first room you enter when you climb the stairs. The room was designed to house a series of allegorical paintings about François Boucher (1703–1770), after the death of Adelaide, the room was dismantled and moved downstairs to display.
But now it returns to its original position, looking comfortable in the painting, with blue blues being made up by blue silk curtains and sofas, exquisite Sèvres porcelain and rococo-inlaid wood furniture.
Walnut room
Now the polished wooden walls of Henry Clay Frick’s bedroom are the setting for two of the most recognized paintings in the series: a portrait of Nicolaes, a businessman at Rembrandt, and an anatomically strange ball of ingres comtesse d’Haussonville (why her right arm comes out of my rib cage?). When Frick slept here, both paintings hung in the room—both entered the collection after his death. However, this location seems to fit, along with Frick, along with the two most famous works he named.
Little miracle
Other living rooms, rooms and bedrooms on the second floor have been converted into galleries, allowing the museum to double the number of items currently displayed. In Frick’s former office, his daughter Helen collected a collection of early Italian altars (with golden leaves).
My favorite display shows the tiny treasures of the museum, such as intricate clocks and dozens of commemorative medals (pictured above), some with stories told by stories such as one of Cupid’s reading poems, a lion’s fable, allegorical fable and even the most barbaric beast.
With the doubled visibility collection and approaching spring, bringing greenery and flowers to Frick’s gardens – visitors should plan to spend more time here than before. To soak everything up, give it 2.5 hours instead of the 1.5 that the museum once took. I can think of the few places in the city that linger.
The Frick collection will reopen on April 17 and will require a regular ticket purchase in advance. Admission costs $30 for adults, $22 for seniors aged 65 and older, $17 for students with ID, and nothing among children aged 18 and younger.
For more information or to purchase tickets, please go to frick.org.