It is a Gilded Age gem full of Old Masters, from Vermeer to Holbein. And now, after a ravishing $300m revamp, it is even more welcoming. Our writer revels in its silk-clad walls and the freshly trickling fountain of its light-filled sculpture court‘If I could have a pound for every person who’s told me that the Frick is their favourite museum, I’d be able to retire already,” says Axel Rüger, the new director of the New York institution, who has just moved there from leading the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Part of the Frick’s appeal is that it is a great museum that hardly feels like a museum at all. Even more than, say, the Wallace Collection in London – one of the inspirations behind the 5th Avenue landmark – the Frick has the feeling of being someone’s home, its contents selected by a singular eye.That’s because it was and they were. Both home and eye belonged to one man, the Pennsylvania-born coke and steel magnate Henry Clay Frick, who was rich beyond imagining. It is not, ...
The Frick museum in New York has reopened after a $300 million, four-year renovation, its first major upgrade in 90 years. The renovation aims to make the Gilded Age mansion, known for its Old Masters collection, more welcoming, including the addition of amenities like coffee service and updated facilities.
