Intimacy Revived: The Frick Collection's $220 Million Renaissance

Anthony van Dyck's portrait James Stanley, Lord Strange, Later Seventh Earl of Derby, with His Wife, Charlotte, and Their Daughter. Photo by Lisa Freeman

The Frick Collection—that jewel box of masterworks nestled within the former Manhattan residence of Gilded Age industrialist Henry Clay Frick—has emerged from a five-year slumber, transformed through a $220 million renovation that deftly balances historical reverence with contemporary function.

The museum reopens its doors on April 17, returning Bellini, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Whistler, Goya and the rest to the domesticity of their rightful Upper East Side home. The stunning renovation allows Frick’s priceless collection of masterpieces to assert their presence through spatial arrangements that honor their historical context while inviting contemporary interpretations. 

"With the return of the Frick's masterworks to their revitalized home, we welcome visitors to rediscover the beauty, intimacy, and scholarship that have defined the Frick for nearly a century," said Axel Rüger, the institution's director who joined the museum in March, inheriting the project from outgoing director Ian Wardropper.

The West Gallery. Photo courtesy The Frick Collection

“Dealing with a beautiful existing building has taught us to really find the appropriate design language that made our interventions a good friend to everything that is already there,” said the renovation’s lead architect Annabelle Selldorf. “I feel that we have identified a kind of architectural vocabulary that is reverent to everything that is there, but also stands on its own two legs and hopefully really makes people feel more recognized and more welcome,” she added.

This isn't your grandmother's Frick. The mansion's DNA remains intact, but Selldorf has intervened with vigorous intention, introducing new pathways between once-segregated spaces. The previously cloistered second floor—where Adelaide Childs Frick once maintained domestic order—now hosts rarely seen works in rooms where ceiling murals, marble fireplaces, and elaborate carved woodwork have been resuscitated with surgical precision. 

A viewer considers Vermeer's “Mistress and Maid” at the press opening of the renovated Frick. Photo by Lisa Freeman

The voluptuous cantilevered staircase clad in veined Breccia Aurora marble serves as both functional threshold and decadent sculptural statement as it introduces the renovation's most democratic gesture: the opening of the mansion's second floor to the public for the first time. The former private quarters, which later became the institution’s administrative spaces, now house smaller-scale paintings and decorative arts, including collections of portrait medals, timepieces, and porcelain that previously languished in storage. The Boucher Room, featuring François Boucher's celebrated "Four Seasons" paintings, has been relocated to its original setting in Adelaide Frick's former sitting room.

Below street level, the new 218-seat Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium emerges as an acoustic crown jewel of the project. During the press preview, the superb acoustics in the room made it difficult not to eavesdrop on a conversation going on 40 feet away. The curvilinear space debuts with a two-week Spring Music Festival beginning April 26, featuring the world premiere of a work by composer Nico Muhly inspired by the Frick's beloved Giovanni Bellini masterpiece "St. Francis in the Desert."

The museum's new special exhibition galleries—named for philanthropist Ronald S. Lauder—will open in June with "Vermeer's Love Letters," uniting the Frick's "Mistress and Maid" with two loaned Vermeer masterpieces from Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum and Dublin's National Gallery of Ireland. This concentrated, scholarly approach to exhibitions continues the Frick's tradition of focused presentations that encourage sustained contemplation.

The Fragonard Room, featuring Jean-Honore Fragonard‘s famous ensemble of paintings, Progression of Love, along with extraordinary group of 18th century furniture. Photo by Lisa Freeman

Returning from their temporary exile in Marcel Breuer's Brutalist Madison Avenue container, the masterpieces themselves—those brooding Rembrandts, luminous Vermeers, and long-tall Whistlers—no longer merely inhabit spaces; they activate them through deliberate curatorial choreography. The collection's gems breathe differently within this meticulously recalibrated ecosystem. Bellini's "St. Francis" returns from concrete purgatory to find its legendary light amplified through spaces that honor intimate encounters while eliminating the claustrophobic bottlenecks that plagued the previous incarnation.

The transformation transcends mere expansion—it constitutes a conceptual reframing where furniture, Renaissance bronzes, gilded timepieces, Chinese porcelain, and Middle Eastern carpets participate in a recalibrated choreography of viewing experiences.

The subterranean Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium. Photo courtesy The Frick Collection

Equally significant are the project's less visible interventions: upgraded climate control systems, enhanced accessibility, state-of-the-art conservation studios, and a physical connection between the museum and its research library. The 70th Street Garden, originally designed by Russell Page in 1977, has been meticulously restored in collaboration with garden designer Lynden B. Miller.

The renovation represents the culmination of a vision that began with Henry Clay Frick's bequest of his home and collection "for encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects." What emerges in 2025 is not merely a refreshed presentation of masterpieces, but a more accessible institution with expanded educational spaces and programmatic possibilities.

The Frick Collection Grand Staircase. Photo courtesy The Frick Collection

As visitors return to these hallowed galleries, they will encounter both the familiar comfort of treasured masterworks and the frisson of discovery in spaces previously unseen. The Frick's renovation offers a rare synthesis—a careful preservation of intimacy alongside an expansion of both physical space and intellectual possibilities. 

In an era when museums increasingly chase spectacle, the Frick has chosen instead to deepen its commitment to the quiet, transformative encounter between viewer and artwork that has always been its most profound offering.