Temporary Summer Installation Brings Three Masterpieces Together and Examines the Role of Henry Clay Frick as a Collector of the Artist's Work: Frick Vermeers Reunited

close up of painting of woman seated in yellow dress

Particularly beloved among the paintings at The Frick Collection are its three works by Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), Officer and Laughing Girl, Mistress and Maid, and Girl Interrupted at Her Music. These rare canvases were purchased by Henry Clay Frick before his death in 1919 and have hung in the Fifth Avenue mansion ever since. This summer, the institution offers visitors their first opportunity in nearly ten years to examine the paintings together on one wall. Their presentation in the South Hall will be accompanied by a panel that traces Frick’s interest in the artist and places him in the context of other early American collectors of Vermeer’s work. An education program involving Colin B. Bailey, Associate Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, is planned for September; the summer Members’ Magazine features an illuminating essay on the market for Vermeer’s paintings, written by Esmée Quodbach, Assistant to the Director of the Center for the History of Collecting in America, an initiative based at the Frick Art Reference Library. This special summer installation, Frick’s Vermeers Reunited, runs through November 2, 2008.

 

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