The Frick Collection in New York City

Frick Collection

The famous Frick collection is named after the master artist who died in the early 20th century, Mr. Frick. The Frick collection is hosted in his former mansion that was made converted into a museum after his death.

Jason Wiggins (2011) observes that the museum if made to give the feeling of a home more than the feeling of a public museum or a public place. From the external view, all one sees is art at its perfection. The stone building lies low with an expansive courtyard and prominent statues at the entrance.

Once in the museum, there are painted walls with the reflections of the Renaissance church with the 16th century furniture adorning the various rooms that are in the museum. Several rooms have floors and walls made from wood, fireplaces made from expensive marble and the arches and columns decorated with a lot of keenness put in them, giving the visitors a feeling of a rustic, archaic cathedral or castle of the early centuries.

All the artworks found in the Frick mansion are from the 1880s and before, some dating as old as a century before 1880. Indeed, one item is said to be more than 700 years old. As noted in the Frick Collection (2011) website, some of the most treasured items in the museum are some of the world renown paintings by the most famous European artists, superb sculptures which features some of the world's smallest bronze sculptures, 18th century porcelain and furniture, oriental rugs, Limoges enamels and much more adorable works of art.

For ease of navigation through the museum, one can use the map that is available in the museum showing the location of the various rooms like the oval room, west gallery, living hall and so on as well as indicating where the prominent paintings are located. There is always a free self-guided audio where all a visitor has to do is to punch the number of the artwork and the prominent features of the artwork will be played back to you including the biography of the artist who made that artwork.

The Frick Collection has several exhibition events annually where there are featured prominent artworks from across the world. For instance the exhibition of Memling's Portraits in 2005, Cimabue and Early Italian Devotional Painting at the Fall of 2006 and display of masterpieces from Geneva that were shown in September 2006 exhibition (New Yorkled, 2011).

The museum generally engages a lot in community outreach and open education to the general public. This opens up the museum and brings in visitors from allover the world. The things that attract more than 300,000 visitors each year from allover the world are the access to the scholarly material, the exhibitions that are unique and lively concert and programs for both adults and children.

For those who would like to visit the museum, the contacts are as follows Frick Mansion Address:

1 East 70th Street (between Madison and Fifth Avenues)