The Frick Collection

The Frick is an opulent mansion which houses one of the world's most extensive private art collections. It originally belonged to Henry Clay Frick who was one of the great American industrialists and art collectors. Frick was born in Pennsylvania, US in 1849 and by the age of 21 was well on his way to becoming one of America's richest men. With the help of his life-long friend and financier extraordinaire, Andrew Mellon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_W._Mellon Frick established the Frick Coke Company which supplied and was in partnership with Carnegie Steel Company.

Carnegie Steel Company was founded by Andrew Carnegie, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie a penniless Scot who arrived with a wave of immigrants to the US in the early 1800's. Carnegie's was the epitome of a "rags to riches" story and by the 1890's, Carnegie steel was the biggest and most profitable industrial enterprise in the world. His huge entrepreneurial success made Andrew Carnegie the second richest man in human history (after John D. Rockefeller) and many public buildings Pennsylvania and NY still carry his name.

Frick's partnership with Carnegie rendered him the title of "The World's 60th richest man of all time" and vast sums of Frick's fortune were spent on acquiring fine pieces of art.


Interestingly, just before Carnegie died, he sold his steel empire to renowned banker, J.P. Morgan and after J.P. Morgan's death, parts of his private art collection were bought by Henry Frick. These special paintings, were originally commissioned by Louis XV's mistress, Madame du Barry and Frick appreciated them so much that decided to build a special room to display them http://www.frick.org/virtual/fragonard.htm




In the early 1900's, Frick moved from Pennsylvania to NYC, bought an enormous piece of land (one whole block to be exact) between 70th St and 5th Ave and built an 18th Century- inspired mansion to house his formidable collection. Some of the Masters include Vermeer, Degas, Renoir, Van Dyk, Turner and Gainsborough.




The museum today resembles much of what the residence was like over 100 years ago. The furniture has been expertly preserved and many rooms have been left exactly as though they were still lived in. The sheer size and grandeur is dazzling, even by today's standards and it seems almost an impossible luxury that anyone could have had just that much space in New York City. One recurring theme which I certainly felt when standing in everyone of the richly decorated rooms, was that Frick must have been an extremely powerful and magnanimous man whose imposing spirit to this day, still presides throughout.


VERDICT: THE FRICK IS A MUST!!  Check it out.... http://www.frick.org/,