Submitted by Sir Joshua, Nov 9, 2006 09:05

The Frick is unquestionably one of those small museums that everyone who visits leaves feeling they have just visited a private home. For members, this is doubled by the fact that a members room on the second floor serves tea in the afternoon. That the family Frick were fashionably secularized Anglicans is beyond doubt. It could be a page out of 'The American Way,' if such a book existed. Frick loved paintings, but refused to let any bits of lowerclass scruffyness that were stuck under his fingernails ever show its self in his public demeanor, hence the 'subaqueous grayness ' of the collection. The instillation is so quiet and so restrained that one wonders what flowed in his veins. I often get the feeling that the Frick is more of a stage set not ever meant for human habitation. Life must have been pretty tight laced there in the late 19th Century, but modern day New York is the richer for it.

I would like to thank Mr. Gardner for bringing up the point of the two-tone nature of the Fragonard cycle. It is the elephant in the living room of Western Art History. . The Fragonard cycle is one of the great treasures to come down to us from 18th Century France. It is almost as if one half of the panels faded from exposure to the sun while the other half retain their brilliant original coloring. To think that Louis XV and du Barry would have dined beneath these panels had not the fickle finger of taste pointed to Vien instead shows how misguided fashionable taste can be.

Lastly, the subject of the expansion of the Frick is something of an annual chestnut. The last director got the boot from the board for suggesting a subterranian expansion towards Fifth Avenue from the current basement exhibitoin rooms. On this point the Board of fussy family members, famous for which bassinette they were born into are at fault. Of course, if a subterranian expansion is in the future then the spiral staircase that feeds those basement exhibition rooms would have to be replaced and perhaps a large space under the magnificent garden just off the east side of the entrance/coat check rooms would be the place. So long as the appearence of the above ground museum is not disturbed. Frankly that AND opening a small public tea room on the second floor in the present 'members' room would be a brilliant addition to the Museum. That would offer an element that would sooth tired feet and offer an element of hospitality to complete the experience.

One last note. When one enters the Holbien/Bellini room there is a pervasive presence of mould in the air. This is a problem that hits me like a brick everytime I go to the Frick. What bothers me even more is that the priceless masterpieces exhibited there are all wood panel paintings. Maybe I am supersensative to mould, but it is there ...and in spades. Whatever the cause I am sure that there are machines to remove this problem, rather than let this become the snake in Paridise

Sir Joshua

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