A Return to Grandeur: The Frick Collection Reopens in Manhattan

By Ava Palermo

View from the 70th Street Garden looking west to the Reception Hall, the Frick Collection, New York. 

Image courtesy of Nicholas Venezia and Architectural Record.

As the city begins blooming and tiptoeing towards summer, Manhattan has quickly become abuzz with the announcement of the newly reopened and refreshed Frick Collection. The iconic Frick Collection opened its doors to the public on 17 April 2025, following a five-year renovation with costs reaching a staggering $220 million. Upon many of my daily walks, strolling up and down the heat-filled city sidewalks, I was invariably sure to stumble upon the ever-forming queue outside the grand walls of the Fifth Avenue mansion. A sea of art lovers and history buffs appeared before me instantaneously as I found myself approaching the corner of East 70th Street. A capsule of the Gilded Age, steeped in grandeur and prestige. The Frick Collection was once home to one of America’s wealthiest families, headed by American Industrialist, financier, and art patron: Henry Clay Frick.

The Frick’s magnificent structure has been renovated with a sense of care and elegance, conscientious of the building's history. The redesign of the museum has, most essentially, I feel, achieved its goals of making the Frick look and feel once again like a home. Following the restoration, and for the first time in history, the Frick family's private quarters have been opened for public viewing. Located on the second floor, the family’s space has been redesigned to reflect the original domestic living quarters and display the works originally displayed there. This significant addition to the museum allows for further immersion into the Gilded Age fantasy. The Frick allows for a time warp experience of New York City in its famed era of wealth and opulent mansions with their facade of glamour and grandness.

The renovation has also added an underground concert and lecture hall, conservation labs, a larger reception area, and a new cafe, all of which improve visitor experience. It is evident that this renovation has been completed with a profound respect for the integrity of the building and the Frick family’s identity. Everything that remains essential to the experience of the Frick Collection has been preserved as it once was. It has now merely been made more accessible and can be viewed on a greater scale than ever before.

The Boucher Room, The Frick Collection, New York.

Image courtesy of Joseph Cosica Jr. and the Washington Post.

One of the museum's most interesting additions, allowed for by the opening of the family's second floor living quarters, is the Boucher room. Once inhabited by Henry Frick’s wife, Adelaide, the room has become a new source of interest and fascination. François Boucher (1703-1770) was a French painter in the Rococo style, one of the most popular in the eighteenth-century art world and remaining so today. Boucher was most eminently known for his erotic pastoral and mythological scenes. Located within Adelaide's private quarters were some of Bouchers paintings of toddlers. The toddlers in the paintings were interestingly engaged in the work of scientists, artists, and philosophers. Additionally, the first floor galleries—including The Oval Room, The Fragonard Room, and the Living Hall—have all undergone their respective transformations, the silky wall coverings have been recreated and restored to their former glory, alongside bronze fixtures that have been polished and improved.

George Hetzel, Landscape with River, 1880, Oil on canvas, 114.3 x 76.2 cm. The Frick Collection, Pittsburgh.

Image courtesy of the Frick Collection.

Returning to the Frick, while beautiful and mesmerizing, also creates a space for questions. Rising to the surface in the minds of many visitors are thoughts inevitably leading back to questions of wealth, commerce, and the role these play in the commodification and collection of art. Questions of how exactly, and through what methods the reputable Frick family was able to attain such a vast art collection, many of which were imported from Europe and have come to hold great significance in the world. It is often discussed in various art circles the aggressiveness with which Henry Frick pursued and purchased his extensive collection of works. Henry Clay Frick came to amass one of the most magnificent collections of old master paintings in America’s Gilded Age. The first record of Frick’s purchases was in 1881 when he acquired Landscape with River (1880) by George Hetzel. Today, the Frick Collection continues to evoke the opulence of the Gilded Age, and the assemblage of the Frick’s masterpieces stands as a testament to Henry Clay Frick’s artistic vision and passion as a coveted art collector. Today, the Frick Collection endures in its complicated legacy of collecting art in a world shaped by power and privilege.

Bibliography

Behrens, Edward. “The Frick Collection Makes a Triumphant Return to Fifth Avenue.” Apollo Magazine, April 17, 2025. https://apollo-magazine.com/frick-collection-new-york-selldorf-reopening-2025.  

Gopnik, Adam. “The Frick Returns, Richer than Ever.” The New Yorker, April 6, 2025. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/14/the-frick-returns-richer-than-ever.

Kennicott, Philip. “At the Frick, a Grand Gilded Age Collection Shows its Intimate Side.” The Washington Post, June 14, 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2025/06/14/frick-museum-reopen-new-york.

The National Gallery. “François Boucher (1703-1770).” Accessed September 19, 2025. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/francois-boucher.