2014

Henry Clay Frick had a deep appreciation for Spanish painting, particularly the work of El Greco, the extraordinary Greek artist who, after a brief period in Italy, spent most of his life in Toledo, Spain. Frick traveled to Spain twice and acquired three works by the artist between 1905 and 1913.

From 1570 to 1576, El Greco (1541–1614) worked in Rome, where he endeavored to establish himself as a portrait painter. The artist’s magnificent Vincenzo Anastagi ― a full-length standing portrait representing the largest of only three examples of his work in this genre to survive from the period ― offers a vital expression of his ambition and invention.

From November 5, 2014, through February 1, 2015, the Frick presented ten masterpieces of painting from the Scottish National Gallery. The museum, one of the finest in the world, is distinguished for its holdings of works by the greatest masters of Western art and for its comprehensive collection of Scottish art. The exhibition featured paintings from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries that invite illuminating comparisons to the Frick's permanent collection.

Born in Parma and known as Parmigianino after his native city, Francesco Mazzola (1503–1540) lived only thirty-seven years, yet his eloquent, innovative art inspired his contemporaries to name him “Raphael reborn” and praise him as one of the greatest painters of his age. During his short life, Parmigianino was especially esteemed for his portraits. Today his Schiava Turca, an exquisite depiction of a young woman, is an icon in the city of Parma and admired as an expression of ideal female beauty in the tradition of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa.

Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828) and Claude Michel, called Clodion (1738–1814), were two of the foremost sculptors in France during the late eighteenth century, and the Frick housed an important group of their works. In 1915 founder Henry Clay Frick acquired Clodion’s terracotta Zephyrus and Flora and, the following year, Houdon’s marble bust of the Comtesse du Cayla. Other works that were subsequently added to the collection were shown together for the first time, highlighting the artists’ expressive ranges, as well as their defining contributions to the sculpture of Enlightenment-era France. MORE »

The Frick Collection was the only venue for the first public exhibition of this private collection devoted to the bronze figurative statuette. The nearly forty sculptures included in the show were of exceptional quality and span the fifteenth through the eighteenth century, exemplifying the genre from its beginnings in Renaissance Italy to its dissemination across the artistic centers of Europe. The Hill Collection is distinguished by rare, autograph masterpieces by Italian sculptors such as Andrea Riccio, Giambologna, and Giuseppe Piamontini. MORE »

The Frick Collection has one of the most important public collections of European timepieces in the United States, much of it acquired through the 1999 bequest of the New York collector Winthrop Kellogg Edey. This extraordinary gift of thirty-eight watches and clocks dating from the Renaissance to the early nineteenth century covers the art of horology in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. For reasons of space, only part of the collection can be on permanent view in the museum’s galleries. In 2001, many pieces from the Edey collection were featured in The Art of the Timekeeper: Masterpieces from the Winthrop Edey Bequest, an exhibition organized at the Frick by guest curator William J. H. Andrewes. In 2013, visitors had another opportunity to explore the breadth and significance of the Edey collection through an exhibition that presented fourteen watches and eleven clocks from his bequest.

The Frick Collection was the final American venue of a global tour of paintings from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, the Netherlands.