Latest news with #FrickCollection
New York Times
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Westmoreland Serves an All-Day Menu in the Revamped Frick Collection
Opening For a museum, the Frick Collection is notably intimate, as is its new cafe. A first for the mansion that opened as a museum in 1935, it's in an area newly accessible to visitors on the second floor. The name is that of the Frick family's private railway car, which was substantially larger than its namesake restaurant. The oblong room done in pale green with crimson accents and a glittery full bar is run by Union Square Events with the chef Skyllar Hughes in charge. The all-day menu (museum hours only, admission and same-day reservations required) is an all-purpose pleaser, with quiche, scones, tomato soup, Caesar salad, avocado toast, poached trout and chicken Milanese. (Opens Friday) The Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, Departing from his usual Italian template, the restaurateur Mark Barak (La Pecora Bianca) is venturing to the Eastern Mediterranean with the help of Einat Admony. Replacing his short-lived Lupetto, Mr. Barak has kept the wood-fired oven but lightened the greenery-filled space with white walls, tile accents and textiles in tones of terra cotta, salmon and gold. The menu follows Ms. Admony's familiar playbook of spreads, falafel, skewers, shawarma, tagine and other dishes seasoned with preserved lemon, harissa, zhug, chermoula and tahini. There are summery drinks made with citrus, pomegranate, watermelon and hibiscus. (Opens Thursday) 1123 Broadway (25th Street), 212-547-8750, Annie Shi, a partner in the restaurants King and Jupiter, has opened this wine bar in Chinatown. She has selected more than 350 wines that demonstrate low-intervention production (a must these days), among others, then chose Chinese items like cured ham, fried cheese similar to halloumi, and sweet-and-sour short ribs to go with them. Patty Lee, formerly of Mission Chinese Food, had a hand in the menu. The elegant little room is dressed with works by artists with Chinese ancestry. (Friday) 15-17 Doyers Street (Pell Street), Tastes of Rome, Tuscany, Puglia and Naples outnumber those of the Emilia-Romagna in New York, but this newcomer is improving the balance. The chef, Roberto Aita (of Aita in Clinton Hill), offers regional and seasonal dishes like tagliatelle with peas and tomato-meat sauce; ravioli verdi with ricotta, pecorino di fossa and ramps; and branzino in raw tomato sauce with agretti, a succulent plant, all served in a pale room with antiques from Italy. 241 Smith Street (Douglass Street), Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, The West Village restaurant that first opened in 2007, then relocated to the Gotham West Market in Hell's Kitchen, which closed, has now reopened with longtime partners, the chef Andrew Whitney, and managers Danir Rincon and Jacob Cohen, in charge. As ever, pastas are the specialty. (Friday) 18 Cornelia Street (Bleecker Street), 212-366-6633, Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Frick's Gift to New York: A Superb New Concert Hall
Most everything at the Frick Collection, which reopened last month after a nearly five-year renovation, is the same as it was, but better. Hand-loomed velvet wall coverings have been replaced, making Vermeers and Rembrandts pop with fresh vibrancy. Chandeliers and skylights have been cleaned. It's the museum we knew, with the grime wiped away. What a relief. For almost a century, the jewel-box Frick has held a special place in the city's heart. Why mess with perfection? But sometimes messing around is worthwhile. The public can now enter the Frick family's upstairs living quarters, turned into intimate galleries. And the museum has returned bearing another gift: a superb space for music, which has swiftly become one of the best places to hear chamber performances in New York City. The Frick's well-loved concert series has moved from an ovoid room off the garden court, where performances took place since the 1930s, to a new, 220-seat, curved-amphitheater auditorium two stories underground. In a debut burst of six concerts over two weeks, the theater was put through its paces. Youthful Baroque ensembles blazed through early music. A long, spare piano solo by Tyshawn Sorey had its New York premiere. The Takacs Quartet and Jeremy Denk played memorably volatile Brahms. There were pieces from Tudor England as well as a just-written song for the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. If you went to all six performances, you heard two Steinway pianos — one from the late 19th century, one recent — as well as a fortepiano, a harpsichord, a synthesizer, a violin fitted with old-style gut strings and another with modern metal ones. Through the very different programs, instruments and textures, the sound was clear, vividly present and resonant. There's a crackling aliveness to music in the hall. Every slowly decaying tone in Sorey's 'For Julius Eastman' registered. The acoustics encourage both transparency and blending — each of the Takacs players had a defined voice, but those voices also melded — which is difficult to achieve in a relatively small room like this one. It's also tough to make a subterranean space feel airy and bright. But the new Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium — designed by Selldorf Architects, which led the Frick renovation, with acoustical consulting by Arup — avoids claustrophobia. With pale walls, stylish brown leather seating and a gently wavy proscenium framing the performers, the hall is spacious yet cozy, with frisky touches. (Those zigzag banisters!) Even in a cultural center like New York, ideal homes for chamber music — gatherings of just a few players, historically in domestic salons — are rarer than you might think. Alice Tully Hall, where the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center resides, sounds good, but with nearly 1,100 seats, lacks the immediacy this repertory lives on. Weill Recital Hall, a staid shoe box at Carnegie Hall, holds fewer than 300, but if seated at the back, you can feel far from the action. The Morgan Library's Gilder Lehrman Hall benefits from partnerships with Young Concert Artists and the Boston Early Music Festival, but the space is precipitously raked and feels stifling, with flinty acoustics. The Board of Officers Room at the Park Avenue Armory is an ornate delight, but its limited season concentrates on vocal recitals. In this company, the Frick's auditorium stands out. Concerts at the museum began in 1938, just a few years after the former home of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick opened to the public. The artists presented in that early period were a who's-who of legends like Claudio Arrau, Andrés Segovia and Gregor Piatigorsky. Seating 175, the damask-lined, amber-glowing music room encapsulated the Frick's gentility; until 2005, by which time the focus had shifted from stars to rising artists, tickets were free and had to be requested by mail. Some devotees were furious when it was announced that the room would be given over to exhibition space in the renovation. 'Destroying the Frick's music room — a chamber concert venue beloved for generations — is an erasure of New York City's cultural and civic memory,' one resident testified at a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing in 2018. But while the music room had old-school charm, its acoustics were inert compared to the zestiness of the new auditorium. In the opening concert, on April 26, Lea Desandre's mezzo-soprano floated atop the sparkling Jupiter Ensemble in Handel arias. The following weekend, Alexi Kenney, whose violin sported those gut strings, joined Amy Yang on fortepiano in scorching Schumann sonatas. The dazzling flutist Emi Ferguson combined with the vivacious group Ruckus for a playfully conceived but seriously virtuosic program interweaving miniatures by Telemann and Ligeti. Even if the space no longer resembles a 19th-century salon, it is, if anything, more intimate. At the Takacs concert, a tall young man in the front row leaned forward at one point, listening intently, and his face was just a couple of feet from the first violinist. While the fortepiano was characterful in the Schumann, and Denk's 1880s piano blended well with the Takacs in the Brahms, one acoustical issue concerns the modern concert grand. The Steinway used during Susan Rothenberg's Sorey premiere and Mishka Rushdie Momen's juxtaposition of Tudor works and contemporary pieces tended to sound stony and blaring in the new hall, even in softer passages. After spending the first few performances in the center near the front, I sat in a back corner for Rushdie Momen's recital, and the piano sound bounced off the wall so strongly that it almost made my ear ring. Some kind of dampening panels or other intervention might help with the trouble. But it's hardly unusual for new halls to need acoustical tweaks. Jeremy Ney, appointed the Frick's head of music and performance a year ago — a blink of an eye in the long-planned world of classical music — has hit the ground running with this richly varied, brilliantly played festival. Hopefully he is given the resources to continue to organize robust seasons, not a mere scattering. And hopefully, in a landscape of museum performance programs increasingly dominated by wan site-specific productions and strained exhibition tie-ins, the series will retain the commitment of these opening weeks: great music, passionately performed. It's as simple as that.
Time Out
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
First look: inside the £85 million National Gallery revamp opening this weekend
Step foot in the National Gallery 's new-look Sainsbury Wing and you'll be greeted with a genuine sense of anticipation. A sanctuary from the pigeons, buskers and walking tours crowding Trafalgar Square, neutral limestone shades and vast expanses of glass encompass a wide, open foyer. Your eyes are immediately drawn to one of three digital HD screens – a large horizontal stretch at the back of the room, and a smaller two on pillars to your left – each showing a slow-moving pan of a painting housed in the floor above. Look closer, and you can see every crack of oil paint, every scratch, every immaculate stroke. Now this is a proper welcome to one of the world's greatest art museums. Designed by US postmodernists Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, the Sainsbury Wing originally opened in 1991 as an addition to the main gallery building – but the foyer was dark and low-ceilinged, cluttered with false columns and dimmed by shaded windows. Needless to say, not everyone was a fan. During the wing restoration last year, contractors discovered a regretful note from benefactor Lord Sainsbury inside one of the hollow columns, writing: 'Let it be known that one of the donors of this building is absolutely delighted that your generation has decided to dispense with the unnecessary columns.' Old Sainsbury might have been glad to hear that after two years and a £85 million spend, the refurbished Sainsbury Wing is now fully completed. It opens to the public this weekend, along with the 'Wonder of Art': a major rehang of around 1000 works in the gallery's collection of European painting. 'We thought the welcome could be better,' said Gabriele Finaldi, Director of National Gallery, speaking about the wing refresh in a speech today. The museum utilised architect Annabel Selldorf, whose credits include the expansion of New York's Frick Collection, to lead the refurb in line with the gallery's bicentenary celebrations. Lively and inviting, the result is a triumph. Reimagining the entrance as a 'place to rest and think, to meet your friends', the stairs were opened up, dark glazing swapped for clear glass and several columns removed, doubling the height of the foyer. On a quiet day, it's a lot of empty space – according to the Guardian, there is 60 percent more room than before – but that's surely the point; you can imagine it filling up fast with groups of school trips and tours. The Sainsbury Wing now acts as the main entrance for the gallery – and with a new exterior sign, it's near impossible to miss (goodbye, days of running between queues with your phone out). Look left inside and you'll find a swish seating lounge next to Bar Giorgio, which is run in collab with Searcy's and serves great coffee (and £9.50 Mortadella rolls). Head down to the basement for the refreshed teal-blue Pigott Theatre with a larger improved lobby (in time, there are plans to build an underground tunnel link to take you to the main building), or turn right to the brightly lit main staircase, leading up past a mezzanine housing a shop and the new Locatelli Italian restaurant – and up into the gallery hosting the very oldest works in the museum's collection. Names of major artists are subtly etched into stone on the side of the staircase walls – Bellini, Leonardo, Raphael – and in pride of place at the top, you'll see Richard Long's newly commissioned 'Mud Sun': an intricate, planet-like shape made with mud from the River Avon, acting as a bridge between the Medieval and Early Renaissance worlds of the gallery and the present day viewer. Onto the collection itself. As you might expect, this is not a radical rehang – it's a subtle, clever, tasteful one, all white, light and clean, allowing the paintings to pop under the towering high ceilings. Throughout the rooms, which are loosely structured around chronological and geographical themes such as 15th century Netherlandish illusionism and early renaissance Florentine altarpieces, you'll spot all manner of world-famous works, like Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait and Leonardo da Vinci's 'The Virgin of the Rocks'. But you'll also encounter stuff that makes you stop in your tracks, such as an early 16th-century triptych unusually displayed with closed doors to show off its decorative exterior panels, or Segna di Bonaventura's 14th-century crucifix suspended high from the ceiling. Teeny tiny panels, vast golden triptychs, battle scenes, portraits, dozens and dozens of devotional works: this is a mind-boggling abundance of stunning, fascinating, invaluable paintings from Western art history. There is a fair amount of criticism about the revamp – the building is, after all, Grade I-listed, and the original extension is still regarded as a postmodern icon – but there's no need to wax lyrical. A real, modern visitor will take space and light over a Trafalgar Square cellar any day. The new Sainsbury Wing is exactly what an art building should be – and most importantly of all, it is still completely free.
Epoch Times
06-05-2025
- General
- Epoch Times
Fantastical Porcelain Florals at The Frick Collection
The Frick Collection's reopening after a five-year renovation has been heralded as a triumph. One of the wondrous things about visiting the museum right now is its special exhibition 'Porcelain Garden: Vladimir Kanevsky at The Frick Collection,' on view through Oct. 6, 2025. Installed throughout the museum's premises, including galleries on both the first and second floor and the Garden Court, are 19 breathtakingly intricate floral installations by the Ukrainian-born Kanevsky. Cohesively installed alongside diverse fine and decorative arts from the institution's permanent collection, these sculptures range in scale, form, and color. Each one enchants the viewer with its special blend of botanical accuracy and artistry. Kanevky's Floral Displays "Lemon Tree," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky is installed in the Garden Court. Soft-paste porcelain, parian body, glazes, and copper. The Frick Collection, New York City. (Joseph Coscia Jr.) Kanevsky was born in 1951 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, but now lives and works in Fort Lee, New Jersey. While living in Russia, he studied architecture and sculpture, which proved to be integral foundations for his later porcelain practice. In 1989, he immigrated to New York—he had only $100 and spoke no English. Kanevsky took another leap of faith when he responded to a job ad for an artist who could produce an 18th-century porcelain tureen in the shape of a melon. He attempted the commission, which came from a prominent interior designer with a shop on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The piece was a success. Then, Kanevsky explored porcelain flowers, as he had been fascinated by botany since childhood. Detail of Vladimir Kanevsky's "Lemon Tree," 2024–2025, in the Frick's Garden Court. (Joseph Coscia Jr.) He compares floral structures to architecture, and he enjoys the technical challenges inherent in his work, which has been exhibited internationally, from Saint Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum to Washington's Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens. Tastemakers and style icons, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, and Martha Stewart have collected his work. Kanevsky says that 'Flowers are arguably the most prevalent topic in the history of art and architecture. Their cultural and symbolic significance offered infinite possibilities for artists.' His work is greatly inspired by traditional European porcelain dating to the 18th century, of which the Frick has a superb collection. The museum possesses examples from the leading French, German, and Viennese makers. An exquisite tableau in the exhibition inserts three Kanevsky tulips with delicate petals into a Du Paquier Manufactory vase. Each flower the artist makes is meticulously sculpted and hand-painted. Related Stories 4/30/2025 4/20/2025 "Tulip Stems," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky is installed in the Du Paquier Passage. Soft-paste porcelain, glazes, overglaze, and copper. The Frick Collection, New York City. (Joseph Coscia Jr.) A Tribute to Helen Frick The exhibition, the culmination of a three-year collaboration between the artist and the Frick's curatorial team, is an homage to the museum's floral displays from its original 1935 opening. At that time, Henry Clay Frick's daughter, Helen, chose each room's fresh floral arrangement. "Lilies of the Valley," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky are installed in the Boucher Room. Soft-paste porcelain, parian body, and copper. The Frick Collection, New York City. (Joseph Coscia Jr.) Xavier F. Salomon, the Frick's Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, commends Kanevsky's tribute to the museum's 1935 inaugural floral displays. He says that the Contemporary artist's 'porcelain creations allow us to honor this tradition—along with the museum's important collections of historic porcelain and ceramics. His artistry bridges past and present, echoing the museum's longstanding dedication to beauty and innovation.' In two of the galleries, Kanevsky has repeated Helen's selections with his installation of camellias in the Library and lilies of the valley in the Boucher Room, part of the newly opened second-floor family rooms. "Lilies of the Valley," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky are installed in the Boucher Room. Soft-paste porcelain, parian body, and copper. The Frick Collection, New York City. Joseph Coscia Jr. The other porcelain works honor Helen's intentions while juxtaposing different plants and flowers with the displayed art, inspiring reflection and conversation among viewers. One poignant tribute is the vibrant and ripe 'Pomegranate Plant' in the Gold-Grounds Room. After her father's death, Helen pursued acquiring religious Early Italian Renaissance paintings with gold leaf surfaces to add to t he Frick's holdings. Post-renovation, these works have been assembled together for display in her former bedroom. "Pomegranate Plant," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky is installed in the Gold-Grounds Room. Soft-paste porcelain, glazes, copper, and terracotta. The Frick Collection, New York City. Joseph Coscia Jr. 'Pomegranate Plant' is dramatically situated in front of the room's mantle. The Frick writes that the sculpture 'is a tribute to a plant whose fruits are frequently represented in early Italian paintings and would have been well known by the artists represented in this gallery.' Above the mantle is a small but sumptuous picture by Gentile da Fabriano (circa 1370– 1427), who is considered among the greatest painters of his era. Born in the Marches region, he worked throughout Italy, from Milan and Rome to Venice and Tuscany. Patrons included the pope and the doge. His lyrical, highly detailed paintings are characterized by delicate brushwork, rich colors, and elaborate textile patterns. Additionally, Gentile was highly skilled in the application and tooling of gold leaf backgrounds. The Frick's ' ' dates from 1423 to 1425 and may have been made for a private patron's family chapel. At its center is the Madonna with the Christ Child, rendered in elegant, flowing lines. Gentile's advanced interest in naturalism is visible in the realistic, portrait-like heads of Saint Lawrence at left and Saint Julian the Hospitaler at right. Fragonard Room The Fragonard Room on the museum's first floor displays 14 panels by the French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Joseph Coscia Jr. In contrast to the Gold-Grounds Room, the first floor Fragonard Room was assembled during Henry Clay Frick's lifetime and has been a visitor favorite at the museum since its opening. Initially, Mr. and Mrs. Frick used the space as their Drawing Room. A year after their mansion was finished in 1914, they acquired a set of lovely panels by the French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), which required the reconfiguration of the room. These panels are considered among the most romantic explorations of love in all of art history. Specifically selected furniture and objets d'art were subsequently added to enhance Fragonard's artworks. The Rococo artist Fragonard was born in Grasse, located in southern France. He trained in Paris under the distinguished painters Je an-S iméon Chardin and François Boucher and became one of the most important French artists of the second half of the 18th century. Fragonard produced a large body of work that included easel paintings and large-scale decorative panels often of genre scenes. "The Progress of Love: Love Letters," 1771–1772, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Oil on canvas; 124 7/8 inches by 85 3/8 inches. The Frick Collection, New York City. Joseph Coscia Jr. The Frick's Fragonard Room collection features 14 pictures, with the series referred to as 'The Progress of Love.' The four principal scenes—'The Pursuit,' 'The Meeting,' 'The Lover Crowned,' and 'Love Letters'—date to a 1771 to 1772 commission. The patroness was the infamous Madame du Barry, King Louis XV of France's last mistress, and the intended setting for the works was the music pavilion of her château west of Paris. However, perhaps due to society's changing artistic tastes, she declined the finished works. Instead, they were kept, probably rolled up, by Fragonard in Paris for 20 years. Upon his move to a cousin's villa in Grasse, the canvases were finally installed. Fragonard created an additional 10 pictures to fill the house's main salon. Over 100 years later, the series passed through the hands of English dealers before selling to American financier J.P. Morgan. After his death, the powerful art dealer Joseph Duveen purchased them for $1.25 million (over $31 million today) and sold them in turn to Henry Clay Frick at cost. Kanevsky has created a lush assemblage of cascading roses for this room, as well as displays of white hyacinths. "Cascading Roses," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky are installed in the Fragonard Room. Parian body, copper, and terracotta. The Frick Collection, New York City. Joseph Coscia Jr. The sculptures in 'Porcelain Garden: Vladimir Kanevsky at The Frick Collection' induce awe and wonder. They help physically define the museum's spaces, both old and new, and enhance communication with the permanent collection. The flowers are so lifelike that one can almost smell the bouquets, and careful examination reveals imitation insect holes on some of the leaves. Kanevsky says, 'There is everything in flowers—history, drama, structure, beauty, and fragrance.' The same can be said about the Frick Collection and its special exhibition. "Cherry Blossoms," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky are displayed in the Oval Room alongside James McNeill Whistler's 1871–1874 Joseph Coscia Jr. 'Porcelain Garden: Vladimir Kanevsky at The Frick Collection' exhibition runs through Oct. 6, 2025 in New York City. To find out more, visit What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
Fashion Network
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Fashion Network
Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris temporarily closes for renovations
The internationally renowned German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf is well known for projects like the Frick Collection in New York, Luma Arles, and the renovation of the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery in London. Post-renovation, the museum's surface area will double and become more accessible to the public, while allowing access to iconic spaces—such as the office of Pierre Bergé, Saint Laurent's longtime partner. The project will also optimize the conservation conditions of the museum's collection, thanks to the permanent relocation of part of its reserves to an off-site location. It will also create a new Documentation and Research Center, designed to allow researchers, scholars, fashion historians and students privileged access to Yves Saint Laurent's extraordinary archive. The updated museum is scheduled to reopen in the autumn of 2027. During the renovation work, starting on July 7, the museum will stage a special exhibition, Yves Saint Laurent and Photography, at the Rencontres d'Arles, the world's leading annual photography festival. Curated by Simon Baker in collaboration with Elsa Janssen, this exhibition will highlight Saint Laurent's special relationship with photography and the great photographers of the 20th century. One part will feature Saint Laurent's fashion images and iconic portraits of the couturier, with some 80 works by renowned photographers including Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and William Klein. A second, designed as a cabinet of curiosities, will present nearly 300 archival objects—contact sheets, catalogs, magazines and personal photographs—illustrating the central role of photography in Saint Laurent's work and within his couture house.
