By now I’ve visited the Frick Collection in New York City a number of times. But it wasn’t too many years back that I’d only heard of Mr. Frick’s magnificent collection. Thinking that my time in Manhattan was limited and besides, the Metropolitan is gigantic, I gave this jewel of a collection a pass. When I finally did come to my senses and visited the Frick Collection, I found it utterly charming and more important, as museums go it's quiet, uncrowded and devoid of the usual hubub. Here’s a little of what I know of the building and its contents.
Situated on 70th, just across 5th Avenue from Central Park, the Collection began as the residence of Mr.and Mrs. Henry Clay Frick in 1914. Before that the Lenox Library (now part of the New York Public Library) occupied the site. Although it was called “bungalow-like” by at least one newspaper, it’s actually an enormous, imposing stone building in the classical style. It was built to the specifications of Mr. Frick both as a residence and as a gallery for his already-imposing collection of art and antiques.
Henry Frick was a multimillionaire industrialist from Pennsylvania who made a fortune in coke and steel during the last decades of the 19th century. Frick initially made millions as the supplier of coke to the Pittsburgh steel mills, then made multi-millions working with Andrew Carnegie. By the turn of the 20th century, he and Carnegie had parted ways and Frick was devoting his attention to art and to his burgeoning collection. Mr. Frick was an autodidact in several areas, most importantly the history of art. A self-made connoisseur, he also had a sharp eye for quality. Although at least one former art dealer said that Frick had little taste and was inept at collecting, the quality of the works housed in this delight of a little museum belies that. In fact, the Frick rivals all but a handful of other world museums. As a singular vision of one man it reminds me a bit of the Philips in Washington D.C., albeit with a different focus entirely. The collection amassed by Frick has been expanded, but today’s Frick Collection is still those masterworks he purchased a hundred years or so ago. The Frick Collection features Vermeer, Rembrandt, Hals, Holbein, Chardin, El Greco, Goya, Velazquez, Gainsborough, Romney, Fragonard, and Boucher, to name only the ones I can remember offhand. We’ll take a look at a few in the remainder of this entry. Mr. Frick either had excellent taste or excellent advice, and his pockets were nearly bottomless. He said that he was collecting these artworks and decorative items so that they would eventually go to the public, and he followed through. In 1931, after Mrs. Frick died, the Frick home became the Frick Collection. Today’s building is an expansion of the original house; the entrance hall, Garden Court, a music room and a gallery or two were added along the east side. The property occupied the block from 70th to 71st Street.
Mr. Frick was apparently not very impressed with American painters and sculptors, although he did use American architects to design his house. The only American painter he collected at all was Whistler, who spent nearly his entire life in Europe although nominally he was American. Mr. Frick did own a portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, the only truly American painter represented. Guidebooks to the collection claim that the Washington portrait is only there because Mr. Frick thought it proper to own a portrait of the great man. But in general, he collected “old masters.”
Let’s look at a few of the works in the collection.
This painting, completed in 1527 by Hans Holbein, depicts Sir Thomas More, the famous humanist who served (and was beheaded by) King Henry VIII of England.
As the best portraiture always should, this painting of Sir Thomas gives us a glimpse of his intractable personality, his clear intelligence, and his inner calm. More was Privy Councillor at the time of this portrait but would later become Lord Chancellor and in that capacity refuse to sanction the King’s separation from the Catholic Church. As he did nearly anyone who disagreed with him, Henry had More beheaded. The work hangs alongside the fireplace in the Living Hall, part of the original house, just as it did when the Fricks were alive. Holbein had a startlingly accurate eye, it seems, and his work bears close inspection from anyone who is interested in seeing how well a man could paint half a millennium ago. The velvet of the sleeve, the gold chain, even the stubble of his beard is rendered with exactitude and art. This is one of those paintings that you can study for a long long time. It’s one of my favorite portraits, and I always spend just as long as I dare loitering before it, wondering at the freshness of the colors and the astonishing facility of the man who put them down on this wooden panel so long ago. The painting is about 30”x24” by the way. On the other side of the fireplace is the less arresting portrait of Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More’s mortal enemy. Unlike Sir Thomas, Cromwell supported making Henry the head of the Church and became one of the chief persecuters of Catholics for a few years until he inevitably lost his own head to Henry’s anger. Of the two, I like the More better.
Directly over the fireplace is this El Greco, if you can believe it.
Again, this one seems to have hung there during the Frick’s residency, as it does now. This large painting (about 42” x 36”) was painted a few years after the Holbeins, around 1590 or so, by El Greco and his helpers in four different versions. Another, nearly identical, is in the Metropolitan Museum, just up the road. El Greco, whose real name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos (his Spanish name just means “The Greek”), trained in Italy under Titian and painted in Rome for a time before settling in Toledo, Spain. Although I don’t know much about his life beyond that, his Mannerist works are always touching to me. Some experts have written that he was exploring religious ecstasy with his flame-like faces and hands, and perhaps that’s so. Whatever the painter’s motivation, the work in the Frick Collection is simply magnificent. Fittingly, across the room facing St. Jerome are two works by El Greco’s teacher, Titian.
One of my favorite painters is George Romney, a British portraitist of the late 18th century. Romney was a wonderful painter who somehow became obsessed with a woman named Emma Hart.
The story goes that he painted many pictures of her and eventually lapsed into mental illness. This 1782 painting by Romney is titled “Lady Hamilton as Nature,” depicts Emma at about seventeen. It hangs in the Library, which is also the repository of Frick's enormous collection of books about art. When this was painted, Emma was already mistress to Charles Greville, who commissioned the portrait. She seems to have passed from her relationship with Greville to Greville’s uncle, Sir William Hamilton, whom she married. Despite being "taken," though, the active little minx also was in a torrid affair with Lord Horatio Nelson until his death at Trafalgar. Anyway, Romney painted about twenty portraits of Emma, being obsessed with her beauty. This one is quite lovely and fresh, and I like the dog a lot.
Another favorite of mine (and everybody else I think) is Johannes Vermeer. Much could be said about this one artist and his meager output of three dozen paintings or so. That’s for another time. The very best Vermeer, in my opinion, is “The Milkmaid,” which resides in Amsterdam at the Rijksmuseum. But perhaps that place could be challenged by “Mistress and Maid,” a lovely work even if the painting isn’t quite so finished as Vermeer’s work usually was.
Painted around 1666 or so, long before the bright cadmium colors came along, this yellow robe nonetheless simply glows. This is the last painting bought by Henry Frick before he died in 1919. It’s a little mysterious because we’re let in on a scene where the maid is giving her mistress a piece of paper. The mistress is clearly the seated, richly-dressed and bejeweled woman. And she is apparently writing or reading something. It is tempting to supply one’s own narrative, perhaps even an illicit one. But there’s no indication of exactly what is going on. The mystery adds to the charm of this late work by the Dutch master.
Any museum would be delirious to own a Vermeer, but wonder of wonders, there are two more in the Frick Collection. One of them, “Girl Interrupted at Her Music,” is ordinary and rather dull to my eye, but the other is the “Officer and Laughing Girl,” a real favorite of mine. The officer is in a big, black hat with his back to us the viewers, and the girl is sunlit, smiling, holding what looks like a vase or a bottle—a gift from the man? The chairs in the picture and the map of Holland on the opposite wall of the painting can be seen in other works by Vermeer. If you go to the Frick, whatever you do, don’t miss these two paintings.
One of my favorite Dutch masters of the 17th century is Franz Hals. Hals was a very great portraitist who lived and worked in Haarlem. In his day he made a great deal of money but somehow always managed to be in debt. In the end he went bankrupt and his household goods were sold. Supposedly he had only three mattresses, an armoire, a table and five pictures when his goods were listed for sale. Whatever he had remaining, it’s a terribly sad story. In the Frick there are several of his portraits hanging in the West Gallery. None of the sitters is identified, although one is called “Portrait of a Painter.” Here are the two I like best.
The first one is “Portrait of an Elderly Man,” painted about 1627. In this portrait, Hals shows everything I enjoy about his work. His draftsmanship is impeccable and his brushwork has the energy and looseness that make us marvel at his facility. The reproduction here does little justice to Hals and makes a trip to the Frick almost mandatory.
This one is “Portrait of a Woman,” purchased about 1910 by Mr. Frick. It’s tempting to view this painting as pendant to “An Elderly Man,” and indeed they hang in the West Gallery as if they’re a pair. But then again, Hals painted many many portraits so it’s not likely these belonged together. Nevertheless, once again Hals’ mastery of portraiture is clear. Hals had a true knack for loose but expressive brushwork. He’s one of my particular favorites.
The last painting for this entry is a Rembrandt von Rijn self-portrait painted about 1658.
Rembrandt made perhaps sixty self-portraits, many brilliant. The most famous, perhaps, is the one in the National Gallery in Washington, painted a year afterward. In that painting, he has represented himself as an alert, intent man of affairs and appears younger than he does in this earlier painting. Here Rembrandt takes on the image of a ruler enthroned, holding a stick (or scepter) and wearing richly embroidered, golden garments. And the image is of a world-weary man who has by this time in his life seen everything and found it wanting. This painting also hangs in the West Gallery and unlike a number of other self-portraits by Rembrandt, this one is quite large and quite imposing at about 52”x 40”.
Rather than making this entry an encyclopedia of the Frick Collection, I urge you to take time to visit this delightful museum any time you happen to be in New York City. The rules of the museum provide for a wonderful experience (children under 10 are not allowed, there are no velvet ropes) and the ambience is gracious, calming, and altogether unforgettable.
