Introduction to the Frick Collection
Read about Henry Clay Frick and the history of the Frick collection in New York City
The Frick Collection is one of the best kept secrets in New York City, one of the few sanctuaries where you can jump back in time to the beginning of the 20th century, when Henry Clay Frick, who gathered the collection, and his family used to live in the mansion.
The Frick Collection, a residency before a museum. It is called the Frick collection and not the Frick museum. Henry Clay Frick collected art for his own pleasure and in his own house. When visitors go around the mansion, they can visit his library, his living room, his dining room, etc. Details such as the absence of white labels or barriers, fresh cut flowers and working clocks are here to reinforce the homey feeling during the visit.
Henry Clay Frick. The master of the house was born in 1849 in SW Pennsylvania in a very poor country side environment. Frick’s family was involved in the whisky business. He got involved early in his life in the steel and coke business. Coke is the fuel used to make steel. When he turned 30, he already owned his first million dollars. He would then become chairman of Andrew Carnegie steel company until 1899 when he finally broke the partnership. After this, the rivalry between Frick and Carnegie would keep growing.
In 1881 he married Adelaide Childs, from a Pittsburgh family involved in the shoe and boot business. They would have four children, but only two would survive: a daughter, Helen and a son, Childs. In 1905 Henry and Adelaide moved from Pittsburgh to New York, where Frick wanted to have his own residency built. He bought this piece of land at 1 EAST 70th street in 1906, which hosted the Lennox Library. From 1906 and 1912 the Frick family had to wait for the library collection to be moved to another location before starting the construction of the new mansion. During that time they rented the Vanderbilt mansion on 5th avenue between 51st and 52nd street.
The Frick mansion. Frick hired one famous architects to take care of the construction: Thomas Hastings from the firm Carrère and Hastings, who just completed the new New York public library on 42nd street. They agreed on an English and French 18th century neoclassical mansion in Indiana limestone. Frick disliked any excessive ornaments and told Hasting he wanted something simple, comfortable, and in good taste. The construction work went until November 1914, when the family finally moved in with 27 servants. Unfortunately Frick would only live here for four years before dying from a food poisoning attack in 1919.
After his wife passed away in 1931, there were some later modifications to the house, including the addition of a winter garden and the galleries that currently host the visitor desks, to be able to transform the house into a museum. The museum finally opened in December 1935.
The collection during Frick’s life. Frick did not come from a family of art collectors. But he started to purchase art very early, at 32 years old in 1881 after a trip to Europe. His first purchase was a small painting from a 19th century Spanish artist.
From 1895 and 1900 he would acquire 90 works, mostly from European contemporary painters (for example the Barbizon school or French salon artists).At the turn of the century he developed a taste for old masters. He particularly liked 17th century Dutch works and 18th century English portraits.
After 1914 he also developed an interest for the decorative arts thanks to his art dealer Joseph Duveen. He purchased many furniture, small bronze sculpture, enamel and ceramic vases and figurines from the JP Morgan collection he saw on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1915.
The collection as a legacy. The collection however did not stop in 1919 when Frick passed away. His will included the creation of the Frick Collection with a new board of trustees including his widow and children and an endowment of 15 million USD. The mission of the Frick Collection was to give access to the house and collection to the entire public and go on with the collecting effort.
The Frick Collection would add 50 paintings on top of the 130 purchased by Frick during his lifetime. And if the works purchased by Frick during his lifetime cannot leave the museum, there are a lot of exchanges with other museums for the other works purchased after his death.
My advice: Go there, get lost in the galleries, imagine it is your mansion. It will be worth your time.
More at http://www.frick.org
