An Affinity for Beauty: The Frick Museum

by Margot Clark-Junkins

After weaving through traffic on FDR Drive, and then through crowds walking down Fifth Avenue, I found myself quite alone on the corner of 70th Street, staring at the low and elegant stone facade of steel magnate Henry Clay Frick’s 1902 mansion. His home, now a major museum, sits nestled in a lovely garden behind an imposing ornamental wrought iron fence. Peering upward, I could just make out the words “The Frick Collection” etched beneath the parapet. The whole scene screams, “Rich! Keep out!” Perhaps this is why no one lingers out front; there are no vendors, no cars double-parked along the curb. Was it closed? 

Sometimes the art world insists on a layer of aloofness that seems counter-intuitive to the mission of sharing beauty. But I had spent three years studying art history at a similarly vaunted institution, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, another mansion on Fifth Avenue built by another steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie. I knew better than to hang back; I rounded the corner and pushed through a pair of wooden doors.

In order to stay relevant and cover their costs, major museums have perfected the art of the “blockbuster” exhibit. These big shows are a heady mix of eye candy and celebrity and, yes, scholarship…take, for example, the Costume Institute’s knock-your-socks-off exhibit “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Andy Warhol retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art earlier this year. But what about smaller museums like the Frick? With so many wonderful, blockbuster-y things to do in Manhattan, what would lead you to opt for a lesser-known venue? 

The Frick Museum has done something interesting to garner fresh attention. They invited the English sculptor Edmund de Waal to stage his austerely beautiful, ultra modern porcelain vessels throughout the museum. The resulting exhibition, “Elective Affinities” (a reference to a novel by Goethe which delves into the idea of the laws of chemical affinity), pairs de Waal’s assemblages of porcelain and steel, gold and marble, with paintings and decorative objects from the museum’s permanent collection. You begin to examine your own ideas about beauty, and what you deem precious.

In addition to being a very successful artist, de Waal is also the author of the critically-acclaimed book, “The Hare with Amber Eyes” (2010), which is about a piece of carved ivory handed down to him through several generations. In tracing its provenance, he learns that generations of his family cared deeply about being accepted, that they used art and the pursuit of beauty and erudition to gain that acceptance, and yet they were dogged every step of the way by persecution and violence.

Once inside the museum, I found plenty of visitors and a welcoming staff. Within minutes, I had uploaded the Frick’s app on my phone, which turned out to be indispensable, because labels throughout the museum are minimal at best.

De Waal’s porcelain vessels are either pure white or grey-black (to recall the steel that Frick traded in). Most of the vessels are round and slender, but some are square and flat; the artist often stacks or leans additional flat pieces, some of them gilded. Sometimes he adds pieces of actual steel to the configuration. The vessels are grouped in ways that are often meant to correspond to the nearest painting. Each grouping is housed in custom-built steel-framed cube set atop a thick clear plexiglas base, so you can still see the beautifully veined marble tabletop upon which it rests. It’s worth noting that Henry Frick’s desks and tables, veneered with tortoiseshell and inlaid with brass, made by by master cabinet-makers like Boulle and Reisner, are as valuable as the paintings.

There is at least one de Waal assemblage in each room. On the app, you can listen to the artist speak about each work and why it goes so well in the chosen room. In the Library, de Waal talks about the the history and “alchemy” of wealth, explaining that the steel industry gave Frick billions of dollars and his massive wealth and power gave him access to beautiful things. This resonated with me in a worrying way and it is also a theme that crops up in de Waal’s book.

De Waal has exhibited his sculptures at several other historic manses like Chatsworth House and Waddesdon Manor. But his work looks most beautiful, in my opinion, in sleeker spaces like Gagosian Gallery and Artipelag, a museum outside of Stockholm which once paired de Waal’s work with Italian painter Giorgio Morandi’s monochromatic still-life paintings to great effect.

Given de Waal’s modern shapes, the Frick Museum’s gilded-lily, belle époque decor might seem to like an odd backdrop for his art, but the setting and his works do share a common focus on precious materials, and on beauty. One cannot help but compare and contrast, and in doing so, you learn to look, which is the ultimate goal.

There is so much to see. In the Enamel Room, you will find some of the greatest painters of the late medieval and Renaissance periods in Italy: Duccio, Veneziano, Cimabue, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Gentile da Fabriano, along with bronzes by Riccio and Antico. 

In the West Gallery, portraits of luminaries and power brokers from previous centuries line the walls, painted by masters like Rembrandt, Veronese and Van Dyke, Velazquez, Goya and El Greco. Note the technical virtuosity of the artists, manifested in the gleaming satins, fur-lined capes and lace cuffs, the bright eyes and serious gazes. An occasional landscape by Lorrain, Turner and Corot provides a brief respite from Mr. Frick’s relentless message: I am powerful, I have arrived. 

The Cabinet Gallery in the entrance hall has a small but superb temporary exhibit of lithographs and etchings by James McNeill Whistler, one of only two American artists that Frick felt worthy of his collection (the other being early American portraitist Gilbert Stuart). Don’t miss the four full-length portraits by Whistler in the Oval Room, and his landscape “Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean” in the East Gallery. His judicious use of color makes everything glow. 

The basement level currently has an important exhibition of preparatory drawings and paintings by Tiepolo, an Italian master of the eighteenth century. 

You’re not allowed in the garden and there’s no restaurant, but the Museum Store is filled with good things. You can’t take photos anywhere except the Garden Court, which I hope the museum will re-think soon. Don’t wait for a blockbuster…the Frick Museum is great, all year round.

The de Waal exhibit runs through November 17.