Sharon Lorenzo reviews the newly reopened Frick home and art collection.
Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) was one of the titans of American industry of the 19th century whose legacy is now manifest in New York with a brilliant remodeling of his family home which took five years and cost $220 million dollars. Having grown up as the son of a farmer in rural Pennsylvania, he rose after a brief time in higher education to become a major titan in the coal and steel business and a millionaire by the age of 30 due to his acute negotiating skills and tough managerial mechanics. Critics called him ruthless but cultural leaders say he was one of the major custodians of high culture in the modern world. He was in good company with Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Collis Huntington, to name but a few, who also built museums and art collections as the art market emerged as a major opportunity for these successful business leaders to express their passions and display their clever discernment of artistic beauty.
Henry Clay Frick 1849-1919
Henry married in 1881 and fathered four children, losing two in their early years to disease. His wife Adelaide, son Childs, and daughter Helen carried on his legacy with continued excellence after his death. A Pittsburgh colleague, Andrew Mellon, introduced Frick to the art dealers, Goupil, Knoedler and Duveen, who orchestrated his effort to build a collection of 1,845 works of art. After renting a Vanderbilt home in NYC on Fifth Avenue, Frick bought his own lot in 1907 and built the family home which he occupied from 1914 until his death in 1919. His family finally opened the space in 1935 to public viewing and its retiring director, Ian Wardropper, has written a detailed account of how the home was occupied and the collection managed until the restoration began in 2021. It is entitled, “The Fricks Collect.”
Ian Wardropper, Former Frick director
The deputy director, Xavier Salomon, recorded major lectures on You Tube during the Covid years while the collection was installed at the Breuer Building on Madison Avenue for five years, called “Cocktails with the Curator”. His current assistant, Aimee Ng, said the new building is now a place where visitors can truly engage with the Frick works of Art. In addition to the remodeled lower galleries, the second floor has been converted from family bedrooms into new art spaces which feature the many aspects of the collection. Philanthropist Stephen Schwarzman has endowed a new 220 seat theater, and a full-time musical director, Jeremy Ney, will lead concerts in same. A major education room has been named in honor of retiring director Wardropper where students over the age of 10 will have art classes and youth programs.
Architect Annabelle Selldorf, and her firm, have done a major structural remodeling of the outer and inner spaces which now connect the museum to its adjacent library started by Frick’s daughter Helen. Funds from the Carnegie Foundation have digitalized its entire collection. A new cafeteria will open in June for visitor dining.
In 1880, Henry Frick made his first trip to Europe with Andrew Mellon to look at art. In 1893 he attended the Chicago World’s Art Fair and spent $60,000 buying works of art from that sale. By 1895 he had bought 18 more pictures from the Paris dealer, Goupil. While his friend J.P. Morgan was starting the Metropolitan Museum nearby, Frick acquired old master works such as the Polish Rider by Rembrandt, in 1910, the Velazquez portrait of King Philip IV of Spain in 1911, and the El Greco masterpiece of Saint Jerome in 1914.
Polish Rider, Rembrandt, 1655, oil on canvas.
Diego Velazquez, King Philip IV, 1644. Oil on canvas.
El Greco, Portrait of St. Jerome, 1609, oil on canvas.
A very moving story in the Frick memoir of Wardropper documents the picture which he thinks was Henry’s favorite, as his daughter Helen wrote an essay saying it was in his room near his bed at his death. The sweet image by English artist, George Romney, depicts Emma Hart and her dog entwined in a smiling pose which was no doubt comforting to Frick in his last days.
Portrait of Emma Hart, George Romney, oil on canvas, 1782.
In conclusion, I find that the Frick Collection is a warm and exciting experience for all the lucky visitors who can wander in the brilliantly decorated spaces. The soft walls and lovely furniture make for a warm environment where you can see what one critic ‘called evidence of Frick’s sparks of sensuous abandon’. His financial acuity and his careful discernment of each purchase is the reason his collection is so celebrated.
Advance tickets are available online and recommended for these busy spring days to facilitate an easy visit to the Frick Collection.
1 East 70th St. New York City
Sources consulted:
- Cabelle Ahn, Renewed Frick Balances Tradition and Transformation. Art Newspaper, April 2025.
- Holland Cotter, Explaining Splendor: Inside the Frick. The New York Times, March 21, 2025.
- Ian Wardropper, The Fricks Collect, Rizzoli Publishing, 2025.
