The Frick Collection is an art museum located in the Henry Clay Frick House on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York City at 1 East 70th Street, at the northeast corner with Fifth Avenue. It houses the collection of industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849â€"1919).
History
Henry Frick started his substantial art collection as soon as he started amassing his fortunes. A substantial amount of his art collection is located in his former residence "Clayton" in Pittsburgh, which is today a part of the Frick Art & Historical Center. Another part was given by his daughter and heiress Helen to the Frick Fine Arts Building, which is on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.
The family did not permanently move from Pittsburgh to New York until 1905. Henry Frick initially leased the Vanderbilt house at 640 Fifth Avenue, to which he moved a substantial amount of his collection. He had his permanent residence constructed from 1912 to 1914 by Thomas Hastings of Carrère and Hastings. He stayed in the house until his death in 1919. He willed the house and all of its contents, including art, furniture, and decorative objects, as a public museum. His widow Adelaide Howard Childs Frick, however, retained the right of residence and continued living in the mansion with her daughter Helen. After Adelaide Frick passed away in 1931, the conversion of the house into a public museum started.
John Russell Pope altered and enlarged the building in the early 1930s to adapt it to use as a public institution. It opened to the public on December 16, 1935.
Further expansions of the museum took place in 1977 and in 2011.
Collection
The Frick is one of the pre-eminent small art museums in the United States, with a high-quality collection of old master paintings and fine furniture housed in six galleries within the former residence. Frick had intended the mansion to eventually become a museum. Many of the paintings are still arranged according to Frick's design. Besides its permanent collection, the Frick has always organized small, focused temporary exhibitions.
The collection features some of the best-known paintings by major European artists, as well as numerous works of sculpture and porcelain. It also has 18th century French furniture, Limoges enamel, and Oriental rugs. After Frick's death, his daughter, Helen Clay Frick, expanded the collection, with a third of its artworks acquired since 1919. Although the museum cannot lend the two-thirds that belonged to Frick, as stipulated in his will, the Frick Collection does lend artworks and objects acquired since his death.
Included in the collection are Jean-Honoré Fragonard's masterpiece, The Progress of Love, three paintings by Johannes Vermeer including Mistress and Maid, and Piero della Francesca's St. John the Evangelist.
Frick Art Reference Library
The Frick Collection oversees the nearby Frick Art Reference Library. The collections held at the library focus on art of the Western tradition from the fourth century to the mid-twentieth century, and chiefly include information about paintings, drawings, sculpture, prints, and illuminated manuscripts. Archival materials augment its research collections. Opened in 1924, the library quickly became a prime resource for students.
Management
Attendance
According to The Art Newspaper, the Frick Collection has a typical annual attendance of 275,000 to 300,000. About 35 percent of the visitors are non-English speaking.
Governance
In 2011, Ian Wardropper succeeded Anne Poulet, who had run the Frick Collection as director since 2003. When Poulet was appointed to replace Samuel Sachs II, who stepped down after running the institution for six years, she was the first female director in the Frick’s history.
During her time at the Frick Collection, Poulet increased the museum’s notably small board of trustees, adding 10 new members. She also introduced the Director’s Circle, a group of 44 members who each give a minimum of $25,000 a year to the Frick Collection, although many have made significantly larger contributions.
Funding
The Frick Collection has an operating budget of $10 million and an endowment of $170 million. Despite its large endowment, the institution still needs money to preserve the building.
List of artworks
This is an incomplete list of the artworks of the collection, which mainly holds European artworks from before the 20th century.
Other featured artists include:
Selected highlights
See also
- Cooperâ€"Hewitt, National Design Museum
References
Notes
Further reading
External links
- Official website
- The Frick Collection, Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America
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