The magnolias are in bloom again at New York’s The Frick Collection. The spring rebirth of these beloved trees, among the largest in the city, coincided with the April 17 reopening of the museum after a comprehensive five-year renovation to the tune of $220 million. This substantial sum facilitated 27,000 square feet of new construction, the repurposing of an existing 60,000 square feet, façade refurbishment and extension, excavated space for an auditorium, the first-ever café, and restored gardens.
These sympathetic enhancements merge seamlessly with the original structure, the 1914 home of Gilded Age industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) and his family. It was designed in the Beaux-Arts style by architectural firm Carrère and Hastings.
A Lifetime of Art
By working with the leading advisors, decorators, and dealers of his era, Frick amassed one of the most spectacular private art collections in America. It is resplendent with works by the leading artists of Western civilization from the Renaissance through the late 19th century.
European paintings, bronzes, Limoges enamels, porcelains, antique furnishings, and other decorative arts are displayed side-by-side. It is an unusual curatorial choice for a museum, but one that evokes the atmosphere that the Frick family enjoyed when in residence. In his will, Frick bequeathed the mansion and its contents to the public for its enjoyment and education, and it has continued to be graced by exceptional stewards.
The collection has grown to number around 1,800 works, requiring more gallery space and better infrastructure, which the renovation addresses. Almost half of the objects were acquired in Frick’s lifetime, while the rest were purchased by the museum or donated by philanthropists. Recent gifts including Meissen and Du Paquier porcelain, significant works on paper, and its first Renaissance portrait of a woman, a painting by Giovanni Battista Moroni.
Before the current reopening, the last major renovation of the Frick was completed in 1935. That year, the building and collection opened as a public museum. The necessary structural transformation to facilitate this was overseen by Helen Clay Frick, Henry’s daughter, and was engineered exquisitely by classical architect John Russell Pope. He created the main floor galleries, the stunning interior Garden Court, and an adjacent nine-story building for the Frick Art Research Library, among other contributions.
The Garden Court at The Frick Collection. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
Now, the museum and library are connected internally, facilitating easy access between the two spaces for staff, scholars, and other visitors.
The Frick Art Research Library Reading Room. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
The library, free and open to the public, was founded by Helen in 1920 as a tribute to her father; originally, it was located in the house’s basement bowling alley. Its collection of materials related to Western fine and decorative arts goes beyond the scope of the museum’s holdings, spanning the 4th through the 20th century. The Reading Room’s elegant, tranquil environment is enhanced by the adornment of studded red leather doors, historic lighting fixtures, painted oak beams, and a golden fresco.
The James S. and Barbara N. Reibel Reception Hall at the Frick Collection. (Nicholas Venezia/The Frick Collection
Murano glass lighting, a stunning staircase in calming Italian marble hues, and welcoming visitor service assistants greet guests in the freshly enlarged Reception Hall, a core feature in the museum’s overall renovation and enhancement project as designed by Selldorf Architects.
The firm is led by the eponymous Annabelle Selldorf, recognized for international cultural projects and recently named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025. Her team’s reimagining of this area allows for harmonious flow throughout the Frick. The Hall’s ceiling has been dropped and the roof raised so that the new upper story is level with the mansion’s second floor.
Grand staircase leading up to the Frick Collection's newly opened and renovated second floor galleries. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
The pièce de résistance of the improved museum is the opening of this original second floor, which were the private family rooms of the Fricks before the building became a museum and the level was converted to offices. For decades, many a visitor would look longingly at the roped off Grand Staircase of the ground floor’s South Hall and daydream about what treasures resided above. Now, visitors can ascend and discover the refurbished rooms curated with antique furniture, restored and recreated textiles, and, of course, artistic masterpieces.
A Sneak Peak at the Second Floor
The Small Hallway on the second floor is newly opened to the public and features a 1914 ceiling mural by Alden Twachtman. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
A giddiness grips one while navigating the array of new galleries—each unfamiliar room beckons with enticing doorway glimpses. The visitor’s progression is halted in the Small Hallway. What could be an ordinary passageway is made enchanting with a painted blue ceiling decorated with chinoiserie scenes of monkeys and birds, pagodas, and further whimsical motifs. Little is confirmed about the artist or the inspiration for this mural, which dates to 1914, but it is one of the joyful discoveries on this unchartered floor.
Breakfast Room on the new second-floor gallery at The Frick. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
Some of these new galleries are arranged in keeping with how they appeared during the Fricks’ residency, such as the Breakfast Room. Others have been created anew. An example of this is the Medals Room, which is a display space for recent acquisitions in this genre. It includes a painting formerly not viewable by the public—a 15th-century Gentile Bellini portrait of a doge.
Medals Room on the new second-floor gallery at the Frick. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
Some fan favorites from the museum’s ground floor galleries have been relocated up above. The Walnut Room, formerly Frick’s own bedroom, showcases two of its signature female portraits. The depiction by the 18th-century British society portraitist George Romney of his muse Emma Hart, later the infamous Lady Hamilton, is given pride of place over the mantle and flattered by the wall’s elaborately carved wooden garland. This placement is the same as it was in Frick’s time. Across the room is the French Neoclassical artist Jean-August-Dominque Ingres’s mesmerizing “Louise, Princesse de Broglie, Later the Comtesse d’Haussonville.”
The Walnut Room, formerly Frick’s own bedroom, is now on view in the second-floor gallery. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
Through Aug. 11, 2025, visitors have the rare opportunity to see one of Ingres’s preparatory sketches for this work. Owned by the Frick, it is on display alongside a selection of other works on paper from the museum’s permanent collection. They are located in the ground floor’s new Cabinet gallery.
The Gold-Grounds Room is a poignant tribute to Helen. Housed in her former bedroom, it displays a small, special group of Italian Early Renaissance paintings with gold backgrounds. This groundbreaking style was of particular interest to Helen, although her father preferred the High Renaissance. She was instrumental in the museum’s acquisition of this assemblage. Highlights of this gallery, indeed, masterpieces of the Frick and museums in New York as a whole, are the Duccio and Cimabue panels. Both works are currently on loan to blockbuster European exhibitions: “Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350” at London’s National Gallery and “A New Look at Cimabue: At the Origins of Italian Painting” at the Louvre.
The Gold-Grounds Room, a new second-floor gallery, features Italian Early Renaissance paintings. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
The most heralded area on this floor is the former boudoir of Adelaide Childs, Frick’s wife and Helen’s mother. In her lifetime, it was decorated with panels by the French Rococo artist François Boucher and his workshop. The panels were commissioned by Madame de Pompadour.
The Boucher Room has been relocated to the former boudoir of Adelaide Childs, Frick’s wife, on the second floor. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
Until now, most of this tableau, including the marble fireplace, had been displayed on the museum’s ground floor. The massive undertaking to disassemble what was called the Boucher Room, take it back up the Grand Staircase, and reinstall it to its original form was a massively complex undertaking spearheaded by Xavier F. Salomon, the museum’s deputy director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator. His concept has become a showstopper.
The Boucher Room features decorated panels by the French Rococo artist François Boucher and his workshop and a collection of Sèvres porcelain. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
The charming painted scenes of children engaged in various occupations of the arts and sciences are complimented by a collection of Sèvres porcelain, parquet flooring from an 18th-century château, and original silk upholstery, not to mention a wonderful view of the museum’s Fifth Avenue Garden with the magnolias and Central Park.
The Frick’s ‘Old Acquaintances’
The ground floor Dining Room displays the Frick’s 18th-century art collection. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
For repeat Frick visitors, the revelatory second floor is stabilized by the familiar arrangements of “old acquaintances” on the ground floor. The Dining Room has been maintained as an ode to Frick’s 18th-century collection of British portraits, Chinese vases, and English silver. The handsome Library resumes the display of English portraiture, including the much admired “Julia, Lady Peel” by Sir Thomas Lawrence, as well as landscapes, small Italian bronze sculptures, and even one of the quintessential American portraits of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart.
Library Gallery on the main floor of the Frick. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
The pictures in the Living Hall continue to be hung exactly as Frick arranged them in his lifetime. A religious El Greco portrait sits over the mantle, sandwiched between Hans Holbein’s likenesses of Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell. On the other side of the room is Giovanni Bellini’s astounding “St. Francis in the Desert,” one of the greatest Italian Renaissance paintings. It is a thrill to view these masterpieces in such an intimate setting.
The main floor Living Hall displays pictures exactly as Frick arranged them in his lifetime. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
The West Gallery is a heady runway display of additional treasures, which include one of the museum’s three Vermeers, the last picture ever bought by Frick; Turner port scenes; a Rembrandt self-portrait; a royal Velázquez; and allegorical Veroneses. Like much of the ground floor, at first glance it appears unchanged. Of course, every original Frick galleryhas been cleaned and touched up, from paint, plaster, and polish to critical state-of-the-art infrastructure updates. All of the skylights, including those in the West Gallery were replaced. The new windows have ultraviolet-protected glass, improving significantly the lighting conditions.
The West Gallery is a main floor attraction at the Frick Collection. Joseph Coscia Jr./The Frick Collection
The room’s distinctive green silk velvet wall coverings have been reproduced, hand-loomed by the historic Prelle firm based in Lyon, France. The same company made the original fabric, which consists of three shades woven together, in 1914.
Another example of a feature that may appear initially the same but is actually greatly improved is the small 70th Street Garden, viewable from the Reception Hall, the street, and several newly built vantage points. This cherished green space was created in 1977 by the legendary British garden designer and landscape architect Russell Page after the demolition of an adjacent townhouse opened the lot. It is unusual on several accounts, including that it is a viewing garden only and not meant to physically host visitors.
East 70th Street façade of The Frick Collection. Nicholas Venezia/The Frick Collection
The Frick’s original renovation plans would have superseded this space, but public outcry led to its preservation and revitalization by celebrated public landscape designer Lynden Miller. In a Frick Collection video, Miller says that she is “always thinking about seasons and texture and form, but also the spaces in between. Russell Page was very determined that the trees were not lined up the way you would think they’d be. They’re all a little bit off, so he wanted you to see the verticals of the trunks, and so they’re meant to make a beautiful shape against the walls.”
The visionary Page was preoccupied with new ways of seeing, just like all of the talented architects, conservators, curators, gardeners, and other experts involved in the monumental, sensitively executed renovation. The renewal has created a palpable and enthusiastic energy that radiates from the friendly guards to the eager visitors. This project will allow The Frick Collection to continue to be a beacon of beauty and serenity for future generations.
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Michelle Plastrik
Author
Michelle Plastrik is an art adviser living in New York City. She writes on a range of topics, including art history, the art market, museums, art fairs, and special exhibitions.
