The Frick Collection has long been one of New York’s most cherished institutions, and the steady lines since its reopening serve as proof of its lasting relevance in the city’s ever-evolving arts landscape. On April 17, the museum welcomed visitors back after a nearly five-year, $220 million renovation that restored its Gilded Age grandeur while updating its infrastructure to meet the expectations of contemporary audiences.
“What has stood out most to me in the reopening of the Frick is the extraordinary response it has elicited from both our visitors and the global press,” director Axel Rüger told Observer. Rüger, who previously led the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2019 to 2024 and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from 2006 to 2019, officially stepped into the role in March, aligning his arrival with the museum’s relaunch and succeeding Ian Wardropper. “The enthusiasm has been palpable, a testament to the enduring resonance of this institution. As I take up my role here, I find this energy not only encouraging but deeply motivating.”
SEE ALSO: Candida Alvarez Maps a Life in Color at El Museo del Barrio
The renovation, led by Selldorf Architects, repurposed 60,000 square feet of existing space and introduced 27,000 square feet of new construction—enhancing the Frick’s historic elegance while improving the flow and accessibility. Among the most significant additions is the opening of the Frick’s second floor to the public for the first time. Formerly reserved for staff offices, it now showcases a cache of modern and Impressionist works, expanding the institution’s narrative reach. The reconfiguration also includes a second ramp from the reception hall, a larger museum shop filled with natural light and a sixty-seat café with views of the 70th Street Garden. On the first floor, Selldorf carved out space for three new galleries, allowing special exhibitions to run in tandem with permanent collection highlights so core works can stay on view.
Central to Selldorf’s approach was a focus on connectivity and accessibility. “The Frick had to be shaped by us in terms of what are the priorities, what are the hierarchies and strategies to make the path of visitors, the path of art and the path of staff function very well,” Annabelle Selldorf explained in an Art Newspaper podcast.
Selldorf’s renovation unified the Frick into a fluid, interconnected whole, linking the museum and library for the first time through the addition of a new education center situated between them. The decision to open the second floor to the public also necessitated the construction of a second ramp, ensuring the continuity of the exhibition journey. As with all the interventions, the new marble staircase—designed by Selldorf—echoes the Frick’s classical architecture while placing accessibility and functionality above architectural showmanship. The renovation also introduced ADA-compliant entrance ramps and new elevators, allowing seamless access across the museum, library, second-floor galleries and the newly added Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium, which was designed with enhanced acoustics and will support an expanded slate of public programs, including lectures, symposia and concerts.
Concurrently, the renovation addressed long-overdue infrastructural concerns. Outdated, energy-inefficient steam heating and cooling systems were replaced. Historical light fixtures were rewired and restored. New sprinkler, fire alarm, security and IT systems were installed throughout, bringing the institution in line with 21st-century safety standards while respecting its historic integrity.
Still, despite the expanded footprint and revived architectural flourishes, some have argued that the Frick remains unchanged in spirit—clinging to policies that some point to as exclusionary. In an era when museums worldwide are working to broaden access and appeal to younger and more diverse audiences, the Frick still forbids entry to children under ten and prohibits photography. While the former may be defensible given the museum’s presentation of fragile, unprotected works in their original domestic settings, the latter increasingly feels at odds with the times.
The collection itself remains largely unchanged, though it continues to boast an extraordinary concentration of high-caliber works. Celebrated for its holdings of Old Master paintings and works through the late nineteenth century, the collection includes works by luminaries such as Bellini, Boucher, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Goya, El Greco, Hals, Holbein, Houdon, Rembrandt, Turner, Van Dyck, Vermeer and Whistler, along with Italian Renaissance and early Northern European sculpture, eighteenth-century European furniture, European and Chinese porcelain and carpets. Today, the collection comprises approximately 1,800 works of fine and decorative art—nearly half originating from the original nucleus amassed by American industrialist and philanthropist Henry Clay Frick, with the remainder added through later purchases and donations.
In some ways, the collection is the Frick: an unparalleled concentration of masterpieces from the golden period of European painting, transplanted to New York and transformed into a priceless resource for art enthusiasts, students and researchers alike—offering the rare privilege of seeing these artists in person without the need for a transatlantic flight. But that’s not all there is to see. We’ve assembled a list of not only highlights but also what’s new and notable—from the architecture to the furnishings and, of course, the art—that make this revitalized yet timeless institution so special.
The restored façade caryatids
Maintaining the façade of the Frick has been an ongoing challenge. Henry Clay Frick constructed his Fifth Avenue residence in the spirit of the Beaux-Arts movement, marked by grand, monumental limestone structures adorned with classical motifs and intricate carvings. Yet limestone, which is soft, porous and vulnerable to the elements, ages like natural stone formations when exposed to wind, rain and urban pollution. This was particularly true of the building’s west-facing side, which overlooks Central Park and bore the brunt of decades of environmental wear. Since the last major cleaning, conducted roughly fifteen years ago, erosion had already begun to set in. In fact, one ornamental element had detached from the façade entirely. As part of the recent renovation, the Beaux-Arts façades have been meticulously restored to their original pale tone and sharply sculpted detail, returning the building to its intended grandeur.
Simultaneously, the Frick has reinstated a long-missing architectural signature: the eight caryatids that originally crowned the East 70th Street façade. Inspired by ancient Greek forms, these eight-foot-tall stone figures (four male, four female) once stood sentinel above the porte-cochère, the grand covered entrance linking the mansion to the street. Removed in 1995 and stored for decades, the sculptures were subjected to a painstaking conservation process before their return. Layers of biological growth, grime and soot—accumulated during their years both outdoors and in basement storage—were carefully lifted, in many cases using toothbrushes. Old repairs were stabilized and blended with surgical precision. Though not returned to their original perch, the caryatids have been reinstalled in a newly conceived space that now connects the museum’s main entrance with the Frick Art Reference Library: a striking reintroduction of a powerful architectural motif, now newly visible to the public and symbolically bridging past and present.
The only witness to the restoration, Diana the Huntress
Throughout the lengthy renovation, the museum’s artworks had to be carefully removed and stored, with a selection of them temporarily exhibited at the Frick’s interim location—the Brutalist Breuer building at 945 Madison Avenue. One piece, however, remained on-site: Diana the Huntress, a life-size terracotta sculpture by Jean-Antoine Houdon. She alone witnessed the entire process. The statue stayed safely crated in the museum’s Portico Gallery, overlooking the garden—a setting that has always felt like her natural domain, given her identity in Greek and Roman mythology as the goddess of the hunt and of the wild.
Modeled by Houdon, one of the most significant sculptors of the eighteenth century, this is the only known surviving example of the sculpture in terracotta, making the Frick’s version particularly rare and valuable. As terracotta is both highly malleable and exceedingly fragile, the piece had to be crafted in multiple sections and assembled around a concealed metal armature—an impressive technical feat, especially considering that the figure balances delicately on the tips of her toes. This concentration of weight on a single, minimal point amplifies the sculpture’s vulnerability and underscores the remarkable nature of its survival.
Henry Clay Frick acquired the piece from the legendary French dealer Joseph Duveen, a figure who played a foundational role in shaping what we now call the modern art market. Diana was first installed in the Oval Room in 1939 after spending years in storage. She was removed during World War II for safekeeping and, upon her return, placed where she stands today—quietly stationed in the Portico Gallery, where she remained for four years, safely boxed, awaiting the mansion’s grand reopening.
“Vermeer’s Love Letters” (June 18 through August 31, 2025)
Located in the newly renovated Ronald S. Lauder Exhibition Galleries, the Frick’s inaugural show brings together the museum’s own Mistress and Maid with two major loans: The Love Letter from the Rijksmuseum and Woman Writing a Letter, with Her Maid from the National Gallery of Ireland. This trio of paintings builds a compelling case for Vermeer’s extraordinary ability to explore a single theme across varying social contexts and emotional registers.
The Dutch Baroque master is celebrated for his distinctive, highly refined style, centered on the orchestration of light, atmosphere and enigmatic detail, often portraying figures absorbed in everyday tasks with a clarity that feels photographic. In fact, there is substantial evidence that Vermeer employed a camera obscura—an early optical device—to assist with composition and perspective. But despite the illusion of naturalism, every scene was carefully staged and composed with an almost mathematical precision, structured by a tension between strong vertical and horizontal lines.
What emerges from these canvases is a dazzling command of light that not only fills the physical space but reveals the psychological drama unfolding within it. These works serve as a testament to Vermeer’s rare ability to capture both the immediacy of a naturalistic moment and the intimacy of emotional atmosphere in a single canvas, animated with storytelling that remains vivid, precise and utterly absorbing.
Tiepolo’s lost fresco
This isn’t a new addition, but it carries with it a compelling story connected to another historic palace—Palazzo Archinto in Milan—that, unlike the Frick, was not as fortunate and was lost along with all its holdings during World War II. Located in the east vestibule, Perseus and Andromeda (1730) by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo is one of the first works visitors encounter upon entering the first floor. This vivid, small-scale painting was conceived as a modello, or preparatory sketch, for Tiepolo’s first major commission outside Venice: a cycle of frescoes designed for the ceilings of Palazzo Archinto, commissioned to mark the marriage of the Archinto family’s firstborn son. Tragically, on the night of August 13, 1943, Palazzo Archinto was bombed, and—save for a single surviving fragment—the frescoes were completely destroyed. Today, this luminous sketch at the Frick stands as the only surviving visual testament to that lost decorative program, preserving the vitality and theatrical grandeur of Tiepolo’s original vision.
Contemporary porcelain virtuosity meets old masters
Masterfully crafted hyperrealistic flower compositions now grace the interiors of the newly reopened Frick. Behind them is Jewish-Ukrainian émigré and porcelain artist Vladimir Kanevsky, whose remarkable personal story and exquisite technique have earned him a devoted following among elite collectors, fashion designers and oligarchs alike. All thirty ceramic flower sculptures in the series have reportedly already been sold, with prices ranging from $5,000 to $500,000. Commissioned by the Frick, the works in this site-specific contemporary exhibition, Paradise Garden, were inspired by the real flowers that filled the museum during its original public opening in December 1935.
Kanevsky arrived in New York in 1989, trained as an architect but speaking no English. He began working in ceramics almost by accident—what started as a survival job gradually brought him closer to his original aspiration of becoming a sculptor in New York. His extraordinary skill with porcelain did not go unnoticed, particularly within the design and fashion worlds, eventually landing him a showcase at Bergdorf Goodman. From there, his path took shape: a solo exhibition at the historic Meissen Porcelain Manufactory in 2012, followed by a presentation at the Hermitage Museum in 2017. As Katya Kazakina reported on Artnet, when Kanevsky emailed Frick deputy director and chief curator Xavier F. Salomon, he responded in less than a minute.
As for the work itself, the intricate floral compositions here function as contemporary vanitas, meditations on the transience and fragility of life. Often, they enter into a striking visual dialogue with the Frick’s historic masterpieces—for instance, the wild artichoke sculpture placed near Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert (1475-80), subtly echoing the painting’s dry, windswept landscape.
The Fragonard Room
The four large canvases that define the room form the core of the cycle long known as The Progress of Love—painted by Jean-Honoré Fragonard after 1771 for a room in the music pavilion near the Château de Louveciennes, the country retreat of Madame du Barry, the last official mistress of Louis XV. Born Jeanne Bécu, du Barry rose from modest beginnings—working variously as a housekeeper, hairdresser, shop assistant and sex worker—before capturing the king’s attention in 1768. He ennobled her and installed her at court as his maîtresse-en-titre.
Du Barry, even in matters of aesthetic pleasure, proved a capricious patron. In 1773, she rejected Fragonard’s Rococo canvases, opting instead for works by Joseph-Marie Vien, a proponent of the emerging Neoclassical style more closely aligned with Enlightenment ideals—perhaps she had already sensed the end of an age. After the death of Louis XV, du Barry was briefly confined to a convent, though she was released within a year. She remained at Louveciennes until the Reign of Terror, when she was arrested and ultimately guillotined at the Place de la Révolution, a casualty of the revolution that swept away the ancient régime whose fleeting pleasures Fragonard’s paintings had so exuberantly captured.
The Boucher Rooms
A highlight of the newly accessible second floor is the pair of rooms housing a series of original mid-eighteenth-century decorative panels by Rococo painter François Boucher and his workshop, now reinstalled in the spaces they occupied during Henry Clay Frick’s lifetime. These pastoral and mythological scenes—radiating pleasure, play and theatrical fantasy—are rendered in Boucher’s unmistakable style: pastel-hued, vaporous and feathered with delicate brushwork that conjures an atmosphere of lightness and luxuriant delight. The soft illumination that suffuses the lush landscapes, paired with the gentle textures of flesh and fabric, draws viewers into a dreamlike, idyllic realm.
Boucher, long emblematic of Rococo’s ornamental extravagance, was the favored painter of Madame De Pompadour, the powerful mistress of Louis XV. Through his canvases, he shaped the visual language of courtly pleasure—a gilded fantasy of sensuality and leisure that flourished at Versailles until the Revolution swept it all away.
The reconstructed Breakfast Room
The first room visitors encounter upon ascending to the second floor, the Breakfast Room has been meticulously restored to its original décor after years of serving as an office. The restoration relied entirely on archival photographs to reconstruct the space as it appeared during Henry Clay Frick’s lifetime—from the placement of furniture to the selection and arrangement of artworks. These include a suite of luminous landscapes by Barbizon painters such as Théodore Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Charles-François Daubigny, alongside a tender scene by Jean-François Millet, where naturalistic precision meets quiet emotional depth.
According to the Frick’s curators, these works held personal resonance for Frick, evoking the rural landscapes of his upbringing in Western Pennsylvania and contributing to the room’s serene, domestic atmosphere. The silk wall coverings were rewoven based on historical patterns from 1913, and the window treatments were recreated to match original textiles selected by the Frick family, restoring the intimacy and authenticity of the space.
Refreshed textiles and draperies
In its new chapter, the Frick has spared no expense on finishes—just as Henry Clay Frick did when he first envisioned his mansion. To preserve the domestic atmosphere and historical authenticity of its earliest days, the museum commissioned the refurbishment of all textiles, draperies and wall hangings from the same firms used by the Frick family more than a century ago.
Most of the Frick’s passementeries—the French term for draperies, wall upholstery and furniture trimmings—are made entirely of silk, a material extremely sensitive to light, temperature and humidity. With so few workshops still producing such materials, reconnecting with artisans capable of honoring this craftsmanship proved a challenge. Among them was Verrier Passementerie, which restored and supplemented the museum’s intricate silk trimmings and decorative textile elements. Meanwhile, the iconic green velvet wall covering of the West Gallery and Grand Room was rewoven and returned to its original luster by Prelle, the same French manufactory that produced the fabric in 1914. Though time had naturally dulled their color, documentation preserved in the archives allowed these materials to be faithfully restored—a two-year process that now makes the Frick the only surviving Gilded Age mansion in New York with fully restored original fabric wall coverings.
These may seem like subtle details, but they are worth taking in. The result of painstaking artisanal labor, they contribute powerfully to the visual and atmospheric richness of each space. At the same time, their restoration preserves and revives a tradition of craftsmanship and technical knowledge that is rapidly vanishing.
Restored ceilings, lights and chandeliers
Even the ceilings—particularly those of the West Galleries—underwent a complete restoration, addressing both plaster repairs and painted decoration. The original early twentieth-century ornamental designs by Carrère and Hastings, richly detailed and gilded, had developed numerous cracks, a natural result of the building’s age and structural settling. The goal throughout was to stabilize and repair these fissures while preserving as much of the original gilding and painted surface as possible, applying only minimal and respectful intervention to return the ceilings to their former splendor.
At the same time, as previously noted, the Frick carried out an extensive rewiring and refurbishment of its historic light fixtures to meet contemporary standards for energy efficiency. In an age when visitors expect more light with less energy use, the museum replaced the original, now brittle wiring with optical cables compatible with cooler, more sustainable LED lighting. While most of the fixtures—dating from 1914—were already designed for electricity, eleven were discreetly enhanced with high-power mini spotlights, seamlessly integrated into their original structures. Without altering the historic designs, this technical upgrade has markedly improved the illumination of artworks, merging innovation with preservation.
Additionally, the museum restored the gilded wooden chandelier that hangs in the grand staircase. Damaged elements were digitally scanned and 3D printed, then carefully gilded and painted to match the original finish—a painstaking process that demonstrates how digital tools and artisanal craftsmanship can work in tandem to preserve historical integrity while enriching the visitor experience.
