The Frick Collection

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent 210 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned The Frick Collection, Garden CourtI want to break my rule and say that the whole building is my favorite thing about the Frick, but if I had to pick just one thing, I’m so happy to get to visit the Garden Court again. It’s lovely, green, and a respite when you need a minute away from the art.

The Frick Collection, Exterior

My second-favorite museum in New York City

The Frick Collection has re-opened in its Fifth Avenue mansion after a multi-year, zillion-dollar expansion and renovation project. My pithy original review from 2017 is here, and my review of The Frick’s temporary home-away-from-home in the brutalist former Whitney, former Met Breuer building on Madison Avenue is here.

I loved the original Frick Collection for its extraordinary good taste, and for succeeding as simultaneously one of the best house museums and art museums in the City. I loved it for bucking museum trends and norms: 

  • Minimal wall text – just look at the art!
  • No cafe
  • No photos allowed (take that, Instagram!)

I worried when the big renovation project was announced. Would The Frick sacrifice the things that made it special?

Then, once the museum moved to its temporary space, I found I loved The Frick Madison. I thought the recontextualization of the collection was brilliant and I appreciated (though I did not always love) the opportunities that having the collection there created to let Mr. Frick’s art commune and converse with contemporary art. I was sad when it shut down.

But now The Frick is back, and the question on my mind is, is it still my second favorite museum in New York City? (If you’re curious, The Cloisters is number one..)

Short answer, if you’d rather not read this whole essay, is yes. And luckily enough, during the member previews for the new-old Frick this spring the museum waived its no-photo policy, so I can pepper this review with pictures.

The Frick Collection, Fragonard Room

Nothing but the best for Mr. Frick

I try to be careful about superlatives. If I like or dislike a thing subjectively, that’s not the same as something being objectively whatever. So, when I claim that The Frick Collection boasts not one but two of the very best roomfuls of art in New York City, that’s very conscious. 

The Frick Collection, Living Hall

The first room is Mr. Frick’s Living Hall, which is home to an astounding set of pictures. Hans Holbein’s St. Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, forever glaring at one another from opposite sides of the mantel. El Greco’s St. Jerome in between them. The monumental St. Francis by Giovanni Bellini on the opposite wall, flanked by two literal Renaissance Men. I imagine what Mr. Frick’s ego must’ve been like, that he could sit with this group of guys around him, and not be intimidated beyond all ability to work, live, think, converse.

The Frick Collection, West Gallery

The second room is the West Gallery, which is, I sincerely believe, painting for painting, the best single roomful of art in New York. What a flex this particular collection of masterpieces is. The Rembrandts. The Turners. The Velazquez. The Titians. The Vermeers, plural. There’s not a miss in the room. Any of them merit looking at for hours, for days. 

And the thing is, The Frick has always had many other rooms that, depending on artistic tastes and preferences, could easily rank on a “best rooms” list. And the new Frick has a lot more of those rooms to love.

The new Frick takes it to the next level

The ground floor of The Frick Collection includes the public, formal spaces the Frick family dined and entertained in back in the day, with plus dedicated gallery space, a lovely glassed-over garden court, and an entry foyer added in the 1970s.

The Frick Collection, Grand Staircase

One reason for the renovation was to address a fairly major need for more space, for many reasons. The collection continues to grow, and The Frick was stuck hosting lovely little temporary exhibits in very inadequate basement space. The gift shop was possibly literally located in Mrs. Frick’s former broom closet. The Frick held concerts in a room that decidedly did not live up to the rest of the building. All these issues are now addressed, and then some. 

The Frick Collection, Manet's BullfightersThe biggest change from the old Frick is the second floor. Formerly offices of the museum staff, and before that the family’s private living spaces, the Frick has reclaimed a series of upstairs rooms for art. Everything about them is fantastic, although I do worry that they’re so intimate that crowd control will prove a challenge.

Frick newbies will take it in stride, but for Frick veterans there’s a fun frisson of trespassing when you go up that grand staircase the first time. While the Frick was in previews, they discovered the low risers and carpeting make the mansion’s staircase a little treacherous to descend, so they are up-only. Fortunately, there’s an awesome marble stairway in the new addition that safely returns you to earth again.

The Frick Collection, New Staircase

Addressing all The Frick’s former problems, the new addition also offers:

  • Much bigger and better space for temporary exhibits
  • A fancy cafe
  • New space to show drawings and works on paper
  • A beautiful subterranean theater (I can’t wait to hear a concert there)
  • A gift shop that definitely does not resemble a broom closet. 

The Shape of Fricks to Come

We don’t live in a world where things get better. Entropy is the rule, change inspires skepticism rather than hope. But sometimes, against the odds, change improves, reinvents, opens new doors, or new floors. At least in museums. The new-old Frick Collection is better than it used to be.

Frick Yeah! 2025 buttonPerhaps my biggest surprise — shock even — at the new Frick was a bowl of buttons at the member preview. Some bore the classy old-school “HCF” monogram logo, which, thankfully, The Frick has not thrown out in favor of some sort of superflat sans serif font. But the other buttons read, “FRICK YEAH!” If I’d been wearing pearls I would’ve immediately clutched them. Kudos to the marketing team for making a joke I never thought I’d see The Frick willingly make about its august founder’s surname.

I do have one reservation. I was excited about the restoration of the old gallery spaces, putting the collection back “exactly as it was.” Except, it isn’t. Not quite. The Frick has pulled off a super subtle intervention throughout, a temporary installation of dazzlingly realistic porcelain flowers by Vladimir Kanevsky, a Ukrainian-born contemporary artist. These play off The Frick’s art, sometimes too well. They reflect The Frick’s own amazing porcelain collection. AND they offer a nod to beleaguered Ukraine. Well played, curators.

But. But but but. That’s some new art snuck into in the old spaces. And a bit of me raises a skeptical eyebrow, reaches for my metaphorical pearls again. Just because this sneaky, subtle art intervention succeeds (really well!), that doesn’t mean the next one will. And I bet in this edgy, brave new Frick, there will be others. So, we’ll see.

Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink: Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland, 1871, plus flowers
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink: Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland, 1871 Plus flowers by Vladimir Kanevsky

 

That off my chest, I refuse to end pessimistically. Everyone should go to The Frick Collection. It’s both wonderful and essential. And now it’s a whole new Frick, and yet it’s also the old Frick, and I can’t wait to see what it does next. “Frick yeah,” indeed.

The Frick Collection, Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick, in his collection

For Reference:

Address 1 East 70th Street (between 5th and Madison), Manhattan
Website frick.org
Cost  General Admission:  $30, advance timed tickets essential
Other Relevant Links
  • Cromwell and More hating each other reminds me of Wolf Hall, where Hans Holbein’s portrait of Cromwell makes a cameo appearance
  • Vladimir Kanevsky’s delicate porcelain work