Frick Announces Details of Its Final Year at Frick Madison, Closing March 3, 2024, in Advance of Reopening of Its Fifth Avenue Home in Late 2024
“Last Chance” Viewing of Frick Madison to Include Special Bellini and Giorgione Installation
(New York, April 20, 2023) – The Frick Collection announces details of its final year at Frick Madison, the acclaimed temporary home of the Upper East Side museum and library, as it looks ahead to the reopening of its renovated historic buildings on East 70th Street, planned for late 2024. Following the June 2023 debut of a site-specific mural created by Nicolas Party, Frick Madison will then feature a special exhibition of portraits by Barkley L. Hendricks, opening in September. The final special presentation at Frick Madison will provide a rare opportunity for the public to view St. Francis in the Desert (ca. 1475–80) by Giovanni Bellini—one of the most iconic works from the Frick’s permanent collection and considered by many to be the finest Renaissance painting in the United States—in dialogue with Giorgione’s Three Philosophers (ca. 1508/9). Both works were owned by Venetian collector Taddeo Contarini, and this installation will mark the first time in more than four hundred years that the two masterworks, which were both displayed for decades in Contarini’s palazzo, will be presented together. Bellini and Giorgione in the House of Taddeo Contarini will be on view at Frick Madison from November 9, 2023, through February 4, 2024. Frick Madison will remain open through March 3, 2024.
Comments Ian Wardropper, the Frick’s Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director, “Our residency at Frick Madison has been rewarding and productive, and we look forward to the remaining months of our time at 945 Madison Avenue, as we continue to gain new insights into our collection by seeing it reframed in this unprecedented way. We have been especially gratified to welcome new audiences to Frick Madison, as well as inspiring longstanding supporters through thought-provoking installations, new publications, and innovative programming. We’re delighted about our plans for the coming months while our renovation on East 70th Street continues apace.”
Adds Xavier F. Salomon, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, “This winter, following two contemporary installations in our galleries, we look forward to a very special focus on the painting that is perhaps most identified with our collection: Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert. Presented in dialogue with Giorgione’s Three Philosophers in a chapel-like gallery at Frick Madison, the installation will pair the beloved paintings together again for the first time in more than four hundred years. I can’t think of a better coda for what has been a remarkable temporary home for our collection and staff during the critical renovation of our buildings.”
FINAL YEAR AT FRICK MADISON: UPCOMING AND ONGOING
Nicolas Party and Rosalba Carriera
June 1, 2023, through March 3, 2024
This summer, the Frick debuts a site-specific pastel mural by Swiss-born artist Nicolas Party (b. 1980), executed in the Italian Galleries at Frick Madison. The work is being created in response to Rosalba Carriera’s Portrait of a Man in Pilgrim’s Costume, a spectacular eighteenth-century pastel bequeathed to the museum in 2020 by Alexis Gregory, the founder of Vendome Press. This is the second installation to be inspired by a volume from the Frick’s popular Diptych series, each publication of which focuses on a single work from the collection, pairing an illuminating essay by a curator with a contribution from a contemporary cultural figure. Party’s mural will be the centerpiece of an upcoming book, Rosalba Carriera’s Man in Pilgrim’s Costume, co-authored by Party and Xavier F. Salomon.
Funding for the installation is generously provided by The Christian Humann Foundation and the David L. Klein, Jr. Foundation, with the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick
September 21, 2023, through January 7, 2024
Barkley L. Hendricks (1945–2017) revolutionized contemporary portraiture with his vivid depictions of Black subjects that emphasize the dignity and individuality of his sitters. Beginning in the late 1960s, his work drew from and challenged traditions of European art, and The Frick Collection—with its iconic portraits by Rembrandt, Bronzino, Van Dyck, and others—was one of his favorite museums. Through a selection of some of Hendricks’s finest portraits displayed in the context of the Frick’s holdings, this exhibition celebrates and explores the remarkable work of this pioneering American painter with an unprecedented display of paintings drawn from private and public collections. Organized by Aimee Ng, Curator at the Frick, and Consulting Curator Antwaun Sargent, Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick considers the complex place of European painting in Hendricks’s art and the evolving role of the Frick in modern American culture. The accompanying catalogue features contributions by artists and creative figures including Derrick Adams, Nick Cave, Awol Erizku, Jeremy O. Harris, Rashid Johnson, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Fahamu Pecou, and Kehinde Wiley.
This exhibition is made possible with support from the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is generously provided by Margot and Jerry Bogert, Bain Capital and The Crimson Lion / Lavine Family Foundation, Ayesha Bulchandani, Agnes Gund, the Cheng-Harrell Institute for Global Affairs, Jane Richards, Barbara G. Fleischman, Michael and Jane Horvitz, Arielle Patrick, Sterling McDavid and Carey Dorman, and an anonymous donor.
Bellini and Giorgione in the House of Taddeo Contarini
November 9, 2023, through February 4, 2024
On rare loan this fall and winter from Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, Giorgione’s Three Philosophers joins the Frick’s beloved Bellini panel St. Francis in the Desert, providing an unprecedented opportunity for audiences to see the pair of paintings in dialogue. The two works were owned by the same Venetian collector, Taddeo Contarini, perhaps as pendants, and were displayed for many decades in his palazzo before their separation centuries ago. The presentation of these two icons together is curated by Xavier F. Salomon, who is authoring an accompanying book about the paintings and their original owner and his collection.
This presentation is generously supported by David and Julie Tobey, Kathleen Feldstein, the Estate of Seymour R. Askin Jr., Jerald D. Fessenden, Gabelli Funds, Mercy Cohen, and an anonymous donor.
The Frick Reframed
Ongoing through March 3, 2024
In a departure from the Frick’s customary presentation style, works at Frick Madison are organized on three floors chronologically and by region, allowing for fresh juxtapositions and new insights into treasured paintings and sculptures. Artists represented include Bellini, Clodion, Gainsborough, Goya, Holbein, Houdon, Ingres, Piero della Francesca, Rembrandt, Titian, Turner, Velázquez, Vermeer, Whistler, and many others. The installation also spotlights the Frick’s impressive holdings of decorative arts and furniture, as well as rarely seen works and new acquisitions.
The Gregory Gift
Ongoing through July 9, 2023
Shown as a group for the first time at Frick Madison is a remarkable gift of twenty-eight fine and decorative works of art recently bequeathed to the museum by Alexis Gregory (1936–2020). The gift includes two eighteenth-century pastels, fifteen Limoges enamels, two eighteenth-century clocks, a large gilt-bronze figure of Louis XIV, and other objects made of metal, enamel, and hardstone dating from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Founder of Vendome Press, a highly respected publisher of art and architecture books, Gregory built a major art collection over decades. He created a veritable Kunstkammer, a chamber or cabinet of curiosities displaying objects of diverse origins and materials and intended to impress, instruct, and stimulate.
This exhibition is generously funded by the Alexis Gregory Foundation.