Art Review: Frick Collection

Does great art have an aura? I’m a frosty Yankee, but I’m an art historian, too, and not beyond believing in magic. I’ve yet to see a painting glow, aside from having inspired lighting, but many of the works on the walls at the new Frick on Madison Avenue do more than that. They command my attention. The portraits especially are alive and insistent in a way I never experienced them at the mansion on 70th Street. Now set against gray walls, with bluestone floors, sometimes parquet, at their feet, and suspended, concrete grid ceilings above them, and all clutter annihilated, the Frick’s art, almost all Old Masters, seem bigger and bolder.

Last year, the Frick closed for its $160 million overhaul. Next week, it reopens temporarily, probably for two years, in the old Whitney building, a ziggurat built in 1966 that’s austere inside and out. “How will everything look?” I thought. I assume others asked this as well, since the move from Frick’s Beaux-Arts palace to Marcel Breuer’s Bauhaus pile is a big news story and aesthetic earthquake.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

Does great art have an aura? I’m a frosty Yankee, but I’m an art historian, too, and not beyond believing in magic. I’ve yet to see a painting glow, aside from having inspired lighting, but many of the works on the walls at the new Frick on Madison Avenue do more than that. They command my attention. The portraits especially are alive and insistent in a way I never experienced them at the mansion on 70th Street. Now set against gray walls, with bluestone floors, sometimes parquet, at their feet, and suspended, concrete grid ceilings above them, and all clutter annihilated, the Frick’s art, almost all Old Masters, seem bigger and bolder.

Last year, the Frick closed for its $160 million overhaul. Next week, it reopens temporarily, probably for two years, in the old Whitney building, a ziggurat built in 1966 that’s austere inside and out. “How will everything look?” I thought. I assume others asked this as well, since the move from Frick’s Beaux-Arts palace to Marcel Breuer’s Bauhaus pile is a big news story and aesthetic earthquake.