Frick Appoints New Chief Curator
Aimee Ng Appointed Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator of The Frick Collection
New York (October 6, 2025) — The Frick Collection today announced the appointment of Dr. Aimee Ng as the museum’s next Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator. She will assume the post starting in November.
Ng currently serves as the Frick’s John Updike Curator and has been an instrumental member of the Curatorial Department since 2015. Throughout the institution’s recently completed renovation and enhancement project, she has played a pivotal role, co-curating the display of the permanent collection at the museum’s temporary home, Frick Madison, as well as the reinstallation of the galleries in its revitalized historic buildings at 1 East 70th Street.
Ng succeeds Xavier F. Salomon, who has been Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator since 2014, in addition to serving as Deputy Director since 2020. Salomon is departing the Frick in November to become Director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal.
Commented Axel Rüger, the Frick’s Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director, “Aimee is a remarkable colleague and scholar. Her curatorial work is informed by her depth of knowledge, rigor, and exceptional ability to engage a wide range of audiences. It has been a joy working with her throughout our reopening and first year back at the Frick’s renovated home. The Board of Trustees, the staff, and I could not be more thrilled to have her lead the Curatorial Department into the museum’s next chapter.”
In this role, Ng follows longtime chief curators Edgar Munhall, Colin B. Bailey, and Xavier F. Salomon. (The position was endowed by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation in 2007.) She brings significant curatorial experience, having organized and co-organized several exhibitions at the museum on Italian Renaissance paintings, sculpture, and drawings, including shows focused on artists Andrea del Sarto (2015–16), Giovanni Battista Moroni (2019), and Bertoldo di Giovanni (2019–20). At Frick Madison, the museum’s celebrated temporary residency in Madison Avenue’s Breuer building from 2021–24, she organized, with consulting curator Antwaun Sargent, the acclaimed Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick (2023–24). This year, she co-organized, with guest curator Robert Fucci, Vermeer’s Love Letters (2025), a widely praised exhibition inaugurating the museum’s new Ronald S. Lauder Exhibition Galleries back at its Fifth Avenue home.
Remarked Aimee Ng, “It has been a privilege to work with the Frick’s extraordinary collection, staff, and community these past ten years. I’m proud to have contributed to the museum’s long tradition of curatorial excellence, all the while searching for novel ways to make our centuries-old masterpieces speak to contemporary audiences. Since its renovation and reopening this year, the museum has transformed from a hidden gem to a top arts destination in New York City. I am thrilled to take up leadership of the Curatorial Department, and I look forward to serving our ever-broadening audiences while preserving the Frick’s unique identity and character.”
Ng earned her Ph.D. in art history at Columbia University. She held fellowships at The Morgan Library & Museum’s Drawing Institute, in 2014–15, and at the Center for Curatorial Leadership, in 2022. In addition to her research and work on special exhibitions and publications at the Frick—including The Frick Collection: Essential Guide (2025) and volumes of the popular Diptych series—she featured in the museum’s Webby-nominated video series Cocktails with a Curator™️ (2020–21) and contributed to its related publication. She also hosted the video series What’s Her Story? (2020), honoring histories of women at the Frick, and Where in the World? (2021–23), exploring links between the permanent collection and the world beyond Europe. Ng’s recent scholarship treats topics ranging from Bronzino’s portraiture to Turner’s port scenes and Vermeer’s pearls. Her keenly anticipated exhibition Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture will open at the Frick in February 2026.
Image: Aimee Ng, photo: Joseph Coscia Jr.