The Frick Collection’s stylish new exhibition “Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture” presents a detailed look at the fashions featured in Thomas Gainsborough’s 18th-century portraits along with how he fashioned, as in made, these oil on canvas likenesses.
On view through May 25, 2026, the show features 25 elegant paintings gathered from museums, private collections, and The Frick itself, so that each stage of Gainsborough’s four-decade career is represented. Going beyond the finery, threads are woven about the sitters’ lives, revealing human tales of love, loss, social class, race, power, and business.
