Frick to Launch Video Series, Online Programs, and More

After Closing of Frick Madison, Access to the Permanent Collection Continues with a Robust Series of Programs and Partnerships through Late 2024

New York (March 12, 2024) — The Frick Collection today announced a roster of robust digital offerings and partnerships that provide opportunities for the public to engage with the New York institution between the closure of its Frick Madison residency and the reopening of its upgraded East 70th Street home in late 2024. Among the initiatives are a new video series exploring exciting aspects of the renovation project, a schedule of free online programs offered by the museum’s education department and the Frick Art Reference Library, and several permanent collection loans to institutions in the United States and abroad. Additional ways to experience the Frick’s holdings will be available via its guide on the Bloomberg Connects app, its biweekly newsletter, and its social media channels, including the Frick’s first TikTok presence to be launched this spring.

RENOVATION STORIES

Through this period of transition, a fresh video series will bring audiences behind the scenes of the Frick’s ongoing renovation and enhancement. Offering inside looks at a range of exciting milestones, Renovation Stories will feature key figures in the project who will share insights on the progress of the institution’s historic buildings. Presented in the museum’s period of closure, the series is created for the Frick’s highly engaged digital audiences, who have enjoyed such popular programs as Cocktails with a Curator.

Renovation Stories will be released approximately every two weeks—first to members starting Tuesday, March 12, then to general audiences the following week via the Frick’s social media channels. Fifteen or more videos are planned through the end of the year. Each about two to five minutes in length, episodes will be presented by a wide range of contributors to the renovation project, including director Ian Wardropper; architect Annabelle Selldorf; curators Xavier F. Salomon, Aimee Ng, Giulio Dalvit, and Marie-Laure Buku Pongo; chief conservator Joseph Godla; and many others, supported by on-site footage, interviews, historical images, and drone captures.

The first biweekly video will feature Carolyn Straub, architect and Associate Director for Capital Projects, discussing the extraordinary depth of the Frick’s archives and how this material has informed the renovation from planning to execution. Other spring and summer releases will spotlight the restoration of the interior Garden Court fountain; the reinstallation of a series of outdoor statues never before displayed publicly; the creation of new conservation studios; textile treatments throughout the mansion; and the recreation of the Frick family’s second-floor Breakfast Room as a new gallery space.

ONLINE PROGRAMS

The Frick’s education department and the Frick Art Reference Library will host a variety of engaging online programs during the institution’s period of closure. All programs are free, and no art background is required. Live CART captioning will be provided during all programs (apart from the Instagram Live series Tabletop Atelier). 

Additional details on all programs can be found at frick.org/programs.

Drawing Together

Drawing Together is an interactive art-making program hosted online by the Frick’s educators. Each 90-minute evening session begins with drawing warm-up activities, followed by a close look at a work of art for inspiration and open-ended art-making prompts. Each program provides a group activity for participants to make and share their work in the company of others, welcoming everyone with an interest in cultivating their creativity. Registration is required.

Dates and topics (additional summer and fall dates to be added on our website):

• Thursday, March 21, 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. EDT – Veronese’s Choice Between Virtue and Vice
• Wednesday, May 8, 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. EDT – Gainsborough’s Mall in St. James’s Park

Tabletop Atelier

This spring, the Frick will launch a new Instagram Live series, Tabletop Atelier. This monthly, daytime offering will engage online audiences in quick art-making activities, encouraging participants to get creative and see the Frick’s works through a new lens. Led by April Kim Tonin, Ayesha Bulchandani Head of Education and Public Engagement, this drop-in program welcomes art enthusiasts of all levels to use everyday materials in approachable drawing exercises to explore the fundamentals of sketching, inspired by the Old Masters. Sessions will be held on the third Thursday of the month starting in April, with the 15- to 20-minute virtual gatherings designed to be perfect for a lunch break (or a brief respite in other time zones). Registration is not required.

Dates (additional summer and fall dates to be added on our website):

• Thursday, April 18, 12:00 p.m. EDT
• Thursday, May 16, 12:00 p.m. EDT
• Thursday, June 20, 12:00 p.m. EDT
• Thursday, July 18, 12:00 p.m. EDT

Continue the Conversation

Continue the Conversation is a participatory close-looking program in which fellow art enthusiasts discuss a single work of art, led by Frick educators via Zoom. Registration is required.

Dates and topics (additional summer and fall dates to be added on our website):

• Wednesday, March 27 & Wednesday, April 10, 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. EDT – Ingres's Comtesse d’Haussonville
• Wednesday, May 1, 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. EDT – Rembrandt’s Portraits
• Tuesday, June 11, 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. EDT – Rembrandt’s Portraits (this session will also be ASL interpreted)

The Frick Art Reference Library Spring Book Club
Thursday, March 28, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. EDT

This spring, join Eugénie Fortier, the Frick Art Reference Library’s Storage and Retrieval Lead, in a participatory, discussion-based program online. She centers the session on the book The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing. This collection of essays from 2016 explores the intersection of loneliness and art as the author navigates life changes through the biographies and works of Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, David Wojnarowicz, and Henry Darger. The book is available freely through the New York Public Library and other institutions.

PERMANENT COLLECTION WORKS SEEN IN NEW CONTEXTS

Several loan partnerships are occurring this year that will present masterpieces from the Frick in new contexts and in different cities. Notable among these is a comprehensive and unprecedented exhibition at The Frick Pittsburgh, which runs from April 6 through July 14, 2024. Vermeer, Monet, Rembrandt: Forging the Frick Collections in Pittsburgh and New York is the first exhibition to unite works of art from the New York- and Pittsburgh-based collections of Henry Clay Frick and his daughter, philanthropist Helen Clay Frick. The exhibition will explore in a new way the Fricks’ shared passion for art collecting and how their iconic acquisitions shaped the museums they ultimately established.

Vermeer, Monet, Rembrandt will feature paintings by Degas, El Greco, Ingres, Monet, Rembrandt, Titian, Vermeer, Whistler, and others, as well as sculptures, decorative arts, and works on paper.

Other loans made by the Frick during this period include:

• Piero’s Leonard, St. John the Evangelist, The Crucifixion, and St. Monica to the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan, Italy, for the exhibition Piero della Francesca: The Augustinian Polyptych Reunited (March 21 through June 24, 2024)
• Velázquez’s King Philip IV of Spain to the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal (April 11 through September 9, 2024)
• Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, Ireland, for the installation Vermeer Visits (May 11 through August 18, 2024)
• Degas’s Rehearsal to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia (July 23 through October 7, 2024)

OTHER OPPORTUNITIES

Opportunities to engage with the Frick’s permanent collection will also remain available through the free Bloomberg Connects app, which provides a closer look at favorite works of art, audio commentary by curators, and much more. Individual works can also be enjoyed at frick.org/art, and the museum’s YouTube channel features dozens of videos, from those focusing on individual works, to lectures, panels, and popular series such as Cocktails with a Curator, Travels with a Curator, and Where in the World?

The Museum Shop will remain open online. Catalogues for the recent acclaimed exhibitions Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick and Bellini and Giorgione in the House of Taddeo Contarini are available for purchase, as well as volumes in the Frick’s popular Diptych series. Additionally, the shop will continue to offer museum-inspired apparel and homewares, along with custom prints of collection works.

STAY CONNECTED

For all the latest news from the Frick, sign up for the biweekly “Frick at Your Fingertips” newsletter. News and other offerings are also posted on social media, including Instagram, Facebook, X, and the Frick’s TikTok, to be launched this spring. Followers will be the first to learn of programs and will receive special insights into the collection.

Please note: The reading room of the Frick Art Reference Library remains open by appointment beyond the gallery closure of March 3, 2024. Details of the library’s closure at Frick Madison will be announced later this year.