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The Frick Collection members' magazine (Spring/Summer 2010) PDF

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Letter [rom the Directar In May, Dr. Stephen Bury joined the Frick as the new Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian. In his new role, he will lead the staff of the Frick Art Reference Library, overseeing its many programs and initiatives. Before corn- ing to the Frick, Dr. Bury served as the head of European and American collections at the British Library, the national library of the United Kingdom and one ofthe world's greatest research institutions. Dr.Bury has akeen understanding of digitization, collection sharing, developing technologies, and many other areas relevant to the Library's evolving role in arapidly changing field.On behalf of the entire staff,Iwould liketo welcome hirn to the Frick. I am pleased to announce that our conservation department is the beneficiary of a $1 million challenge grant recently awarded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. When matched over the next four years with $3 million in contributions from other donors, the grant willcreate a $4 million endowment for the position of chief conserva- tor. I am extremely proud of the myriad ways in which this superb department, led by Joseph Godla, cares for our holdings and the beautiful mansion that houses them. The endowment will ensure that this vital area of the Collection's stewardship continues in perpetuity, while also making possible the department's broader contributions within the conservation community. Itisan exciting prospect, and weare deeply grateful to the Mellon Foundation for making itpossible. The Frick's travel program has become an important wayto strengthen relationships with existing donors while simultaneously reaching out to new friends. In May,Iaccorn- panied agroup of supporters on aweek-long trip to Sweden for an in-depthexploration of sorne of the finest surviving examples of the distinctively Swedish neoclassical archi- tecture and decorative arts promoted byGustav III following his return from Versaillesin 1771.Our itinerary included visitstopalaces,villas,and gardens in and around Stockholm, aswellasanumber ofprivate homes. Throughout the weekwewerewarmly received and entertained by collectors, curators, museum directors, and members of Sweden's aristoc- racy.For information about upcoming trips, please contact Caitlin Davis at 212.547.0697. Aspart ofour ongoing celebration ofThe Frick Collection's seventy-fifth anniversary, this summer we will present an installation of original drawings and early photographs that document the transformation ofthe once-private Frickfamilymansion into apublic museum. The display,on viewinthe Cabinet through September 5,willfeature aselection ofelegant elevations executed forJohn RussellPope,the architect responsiblenot only for the museum's Oval Room, Garden Court, East Gallery,and Music Room, but alsofor the building that houses the FrickArt Reference Library. Iwish you an enjoyable summer, and Ihope that your plans will include at least one visit to The Frick Collection. Kind regards, Anne L.Poulet Director THE FRICK COLLECTION MEMBERS' MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2010 2 TRIBUTE Remembering Charles A.Ryskamp, Director Emeritus 4 CABINET INSTALLATION From Mansion to Museum: The Frick Collection Celebrates Seventy-five Years 6 PERMANENT COLLECTION Becoming The Frick Collection: Helen ClayFrick and the Museum's EarlyAcquisitions 16 LIBRARY Arcade:A Groundbreaking Collaboration 18 COMMUNITY The Frick Celebrates lts 75thAnniversary: Director's Circle Dinner, YoungFellowsBall,Spring Party 20 SUMMER CALENDAR Educational Programming, Concerts, Museum Shop LEFT The Seventieth Street Garden FRONT COVER Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862-1938), Henry Clay Prick and Daughter Helen (detail), c.1910,oilon canvas,National Portrait Gallery,Washington, D.C. BACK COVER The Portico and FifthAvenue Garden; photograph byMichael Bodycomb TRIBUTE Rernernbering Charles A. Ryskarnp Director Emeritus I nMarch Charles A.Ryskamp, The Frick seventeenyears.Previouslyseenasastaidand Aliterary scholar by training and a self- Collection's fifth director and longtime unchanging institution, the Frick underwent taught connoisseur, Mr. Ryskamp was a friend, died in Manhattan at the age of a profound evolution under his leadership. passionate art loverand an avidcollector.He eighty-one. His contributions to the institu- With his guidance, the museum expanded began buying at auction in his early teens, tion were innumerable, and his tenure as its specialexhibitions program, made several eventually building a substantial collection director was marked by dynamic leader- important acquisitions, developed new gal- of Old Master and Romantic prints and ship, a passionate commitment to scholar- lery spaces, and enhanced its publications drawings that would later be the subject of ship, and successful fundraising efforts. His program. He launched aformal membership exhibitions at the Morgan Library and at engaging, larger-than-life persona attracted program andreinvigorated theYoungFellows, the Yale Center for British Art. His com- an ever-widening circle of friends to the both ofwhich havebecome important forces mitment to scholarship and connoisseur- Frick and set the course for broadening the in the lifeof the museum. Perhaps his most ship was reflected in his expansion of the museum's outreach. Throughout his tenure, enduring legacy,however, was his successful Frick's special exhibitions program, which he found creative waysto energize the insti- effort to savethe FrickArt ReferenceLibrary drew large audiences and garnered accolades tution without losing sight of its history or by mounting the Frick's first capital cam- from the press. Highlights during his tenure itsunique place in the art world. paign, which raised $34 million to support were François-Marius Granet: Watercolors Mr. Ryskamp was named director of the Library's programs and to ensure itscon- from the Musée Granet at Aix-en-Provence The Frick Collection in 1987, after serving tinued contributions to research in the field (1988); The Frick's Other Collection: The rotn as the director of the Morgan Library for ofart history. Anniversary of the Frick Art Reference Library (1990); Nicholas Lancret, 1690-1743 (1991); The Currency ofFame: Portrait Medals of the Renaissance (1994); John Constable: Drawings, Oil Sketches, and Paintings from a Private Collection (1994); and The Butterfly and the Bat: Whistler and Montesquiou (1995). Aprevailing misunderstanding about the Frick is that it is a static collection. As Mr. Ryskampwasalwaysquicktopoint out,more than one-third of the works of art on view were acquired after Mr. Frick's death in 1919. In keeping with that tradition, Mr. Ryskamp oversaw a number of notable acquisitions LEFT Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), The Portal of Valenciennes, 1709-10, oilon canvas.The painting was acquired byThe FrickCollection in1991under Charles Ryskarnp's leadership. OPPOSITE PAGE Charles A.Ryskamp inhisofficeatThe Frick Collection, c.1996 2 The Frick Collection TRIBUTE he abolished the regulation that required women researchers to wear skirts in order to be admitted to the Library's Reading Room. Hisrepeal ofthe anachronistic rule- enforced since the Library opened its doors in 1924-did much to help alter the public's perception of the Frick as an unchanging, outmoded institution. Mr. Ryskamp significantly expanded the range and reach of the Frick's publications. He was devoted to finishing the compre- hensive, nine-volume catalogue of the per- manent collection (intended primarily for the use of scholars and collectors), but he also realized the importance of servicing a more general readership. He accomplished during his tenure, among them drawings, English poet William Cowper and the diarist this by supporting the Collection's efforts to sculptures, and paintings, including The James Boswell. In addition to his teaching publish fully illustrated volumes, including PortalofValenciennes (opposite page)byJean- duties, he was the curator of English and Paintings from The Frick Collection andArt in Antoine Watteau, the firstworkbyWatteau to American literature atPrinceton's library. The Frick Collection: Painting, Sculpture, and enter the Collection. Other significant works His deep knowledge of literature and Decorative Arts. added were The Arch of Constantine and the art informed every aspect of his leadership After retiring as director in 1997, Mr. Forum, Rome byJean-Baptiste-Camille Corot; and was nowhere more apparent than in his Ryskamp served the Frick in an advisory a relief sculpture of the Pietà by Alessandro promotion ofthe FrickArtReferenceLibrary. role for more than a decade. He will be Algardi;Jean-Étienne Liotard's Trompe l'Oeil, Withfundsraisedduring theLibrary'sendow- remembered for his passionate love of art, and two pastel drawings by Jean-Baptiste ment campaign, theAndrewW.Mellon Chief for his dedication to ensuring the strength Greuze, Baptiste Aîné and Madame Baptiste Librarian position was created and several and stability of the institution, and for his Aîné. These and other acquisitions reflecthis book funds were established. To help guide wisdom, warmth, and marvelous wit.-Anne refined taste and astute judgment. andsupport itsprograms, hebrought together L. Poulet, Director Mr. Ryskamp grew up in Michigan in a a group of scholars, dealers, and philanthro- family of academies. He earned his bach- piststo form the Council ofAssociatesofthe elor's degree in English at Calvin College in Frick Art Reference Library, which evolved A memorial service for Charles Ryskamp was Grand Rapids and went on to do graduate into what is now the Visiting Committee. held on May 10 at St. James' Church in New work at Yale, receiving a master's degree Major advancements were achieved in the York City. Readings and remarks from the in 1951and a doctorate in 1956.He began areas of technology and digitization, includ- service can befound atfrick.org. Ifyou would teaching at Princeton University in 1955, ing the creation of FRESCO (Frick Research like ta make a contribution ta the Frick Art becoming a full professor in 1969.He wrote CatalogOnline), the Frick'sfirstonline public Reference Ltbrary's endowed bookfund estab- well-received books on eighteenth-century access catalog. Mr. Ryskamp was an advo- lished in Mr. Ryskamp's honor, please contact British literature and was an expert on the cate of accessibility in aIlareas, and in 1989 Mary Emerson at 212.547.6870. Members' Magazine Spring/Summer 2010 3 CABINET INSTALLATION From Mansion to Museum The Frick Collection Celebrates Seventy-Five Years June 22through September 5, 2010 O n December 16, 1935, The Frick transformation of the house. The Board of École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which nur- Collection opened its doors to fas- Trustees, which had been hand selected by tured his enthusiasm for classical architec- cinated crowds. Henry Clay Frick had died Mr. Frick and named in his will,invited two tural styles.Bythe 1930She was nearing the sixteen years before, leaving his magnifi- renowned architects to submit plans for the end of a successful career, although at the cent collection and his Fifth Avenue man- new museum: Delano and Aldrich, design- time he was busier than ever with museum sion for the benefit of the public. What ers of the original Walters Art Gallery in commissions. He worked on two additions happened in the intervening years is the Baltimore, and JohnRussellPope,whowould for The Metropolitan Museum of Art and subject of an installation currently on view count among his most famous commissions designed the monumental gallery for mod- in the Cabinet, From Mansion to Museum: the National Archives in Washington, D.C. ern sculpture at London's TateGallery. The Frick Collection Celebrates Seventy-Five (1930-35),the gallery for the Elgin Marbles Pope proposed clearing the Frick man- Years. The selection of architectural draw- at the British Museum in London (1930-39), sion's former courtyard and enclosing it ings and photographs on display charts the the WestBuilding of the National Gallery of under glass (opposite page, right), thereby conversion of Mr. Frick's private residence, Art in Washington, D.C. (1935-41),and the creating the Garden Court, complete with designed by Carrère and Hastings, into one Jefferson Memorial (1936-43),the last three palms,plants, and afountain inthe center.An ofNewYork'sfinest art institutions. completed posthumously. inspired design,the Frick'sGarden Court pre- Mf. Frick's widow, Adelaide, and his John RussellPope (below,left) trained at figured Pope's plans for similar courts in the daughter Helen continued to live in the Columbia University and was subsequently National Gallery ofArt. Pope also advocated family home at One East 70th Street after awarded a scholarship to the American creating a new entrance on 70th Street by his death. When Adelaide died in 1931,little Academy in Rome to study the architecture extending the façade over the building's for- time was wasted in beginning work on the of Italy and Greece. He also studied at the mer carriageway. These ingenious solutions won Popethe commission inMarch 1932. Among the first issues Pope addressed in transforming the Frickhome into amuseum was visitor access. The mansion's former PAR LEPT John RussellPope (1873-1937), c.1916,Collection ofthe American Academy ofArts and Letters, NewYork LEFT Angelo Magnanti (1879-1969), Music Room ofThe Prick Collection, 1935,graphite, colored pencils, watercolor, and goldleafon paper, The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives OPPOS1TE PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT Pope's thirteen-story Library under construction, April 1934.Tothebuilding's right isThomas Hastings's original one-story Library,which would soon be demolished. The FrickCollection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives The Garden Court under construction, 1935,The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives 4 The Frick Collection CABINET INSTALLATION porte-cochère was demolished to make way Along with the additions of the Entrance Library were submitted for approval, with for a public entryway, today known as the Hall, the East Gallery, the Music Room, and construction costs estimated at $1,941,000. Entrance Hall. The hall's ornate coffered ceil- the Garden Court, Pope designed the classi- Pope's Italianate Library, built of the same ing is balanced by the more austere pilasters cally inspired building that houses the Frick Indiana limestone as the house, opened to capped with Ionie capitals and the arched Art Reference Library, located adjacent to the researchers in Ianuary 1935.Bythe end of that portals of the roorn's limestone walls. Collection on East 71St Street. The Library same year, the new Frick Collection was also Originally proposed for the second floor had been founded in 1920 by Helen Clay ready. Every detail Pope had designed was of the mansion, the auditorium (known Frick as a memorial to her father and since employed to make the transition from the today asthe Music Room) was constructed on 1924had been housed in aone-story building original house to its modern additions har- the museum's main floor to allow easy access designed by the architect Thomas Hastings. monious. Similar marbles, woods, and stone from both the Collection and the Library. The rapid expansion of the Library's collec- were used wherever possible, and the decora- An elegant large-scale elevation drawing exe- tion of art books, journals, and photographs tion of the Garden Court-with its paired cuted for Pope by the architectural decorator resulted in an urgent need for more space. Ionie columns, shields, and cartouches- and muralist Angelo Magnanti, one of four By the time Pope submitted a set of revised consciously evoked the classical vocabulary on view in the Cabinet, depicts the Music plans in August 1933,adjacent properties at used by Hastings in the original house. On Room's flattened domed ceiling and circular 10and 12East 71StStreet had been purchased December n, 1935, seven hundred invited skylight (opposite page). Itwas Pope's inten- by the Trustees. Pope then proposed dernol- guests attended an inaugural reception. An tion that the room serve asboth alecture hall ishing Hastings's original Library, thereby article in the Art News three days later noted and an art gallery. allowing the museum to expand into both that "It will be difficult for the viewer unfa- Mr. Frick's former office, just off the the interior court yard and the adjoining plot miliar with the house as it stood three years West Gallery, was demolished to make way at 6 and 8 East 71st Street, where the origi- ago to realize what tremendous changes have for the Oval Room. An oval shape was cho- nal Library stood. The new thirteen-story been wrought to make a handsome private sen because, according to Pope, "It could Library (above, left) would be constructed dwelling into an efficient museum building." be creatively treated as a thing in itself, on the site of the razed townhouses at 10and The massive rebuilding and new construction contrasting with the couds rectangle .... - 12East 71StStreet. that had been carried out with such speedand As such it would have a certain definite In April 1933Pope's final plans for both efficiency surely would have impressed the elegance of its own." the addition to the Collection and the new founder.-Margaret Jacono,Assistant Curator Members' Magazine Spring/Summer 2010 5 PERMANENT COLLECTION Becoming The Frick Collection Helen Clay Frick and the Museum's Early Acquisitions D uring the years between Henry Clay new acquisitions and to shape The Frick Miss Frick composed in her teens and twen- Frick's death in 1919and the muse- Collection as a public institution. Bydesig- ties to record what she had seen during the um's opening in 1935,The Frick Collection nating his family members and dose associ- family's numerous trips to European muse- underwent more substantive changes than ates as Trustees, Frick sought to ensure the ums and private collections. She was her it would at any other time in its subsequent integrity of his legacy even as he granted father's keycompanion ashe assembled one seventy-five-year history. The magnificent the Board the liberty to initiate change. The of the most important art collections in the addition to the original Frick mansion on Board's charter family members induded United States and built a mansion to house East 70th Street nearly doubled the muse- his wife, Adelaide; his son, Childs; and his it. When her father died in 1919,Miss Frick um's size. Designed and built between 1931 daughter Helen Clay(below), or"MissFrick" was thirty years old, a woman in her first and 1935by John Russell Pope, the new asshe was called. Though Childs was chair- maturity, who, though not formally trained, East Gallery, Oval Rcom, Garden Court, man, Miss Frick acted as a leader. Her sta- had been schooled allher lifein the sophis- and Lecture Hall echoed the grand scale tus as the principal heir to her father's ticated appreciation, display, and purchasing of Frick's Picture Gallery (now called the private fortune gave her the power, if not offine art. WestGallery). Pope's enlarged and expanded the written authority, to assume this role. Just a few months after her father's FrickArt Reference Library,which had been Unlike -her brother, Miss Frick shared her death, Miss Frick set off to Europe to begin ' founded in 1920 in Prick's honor by his father's passion for art. From her childhood, researching his collection. On that trip she daughter Helen Clay,rose on East71stStreet they discussed his collecting, and Frick's made her first independent contact with at the same time as the museum addition paternal attention shaped her life'spurpose. curators, scholars, and dealers-the kind of was being built. Today, these two institu- The Frick archives contain the meticulously professionals she would cultivate asadvisers tions express the unityofHenry ClayFrick's annotated and illustrated travel diaries that and friends asshedevoted her lifeand alarge vision. In enduring architectural terrns, they part ofher substantial inheritance tothe arts. articulate the goals stated in Frick's will, Inspired by this experience, she created and in which he bequeathed his art collection financed the FrickArt ReferenceLibrary,one and residence "for the purpose of establish- of the earliest independent research institu- ing and maintaining a gallery of art ... and tions in the United States dedicated to pro- encouraging and developing the study of moting the study of art history. Byfounding the fine arts ... for the use and benefit of all theLibrarywithin ayearofher father's death, persons.... " Miss Frick addressed the educational goals Written asastatement of purpose rather that were integral to his bequest. Toher, the than as a restrictive set of rules, Frick's will will'smandate of"encouraging and develop- granted the Board of Trustees the freedom ing the study of the fine arts" applied with to augment his original collection through equal force to determining the Collection's acquisitions. Miss Frick's knowledge of art. history provided the confidence to evalu- RIGHT ate her father's collection, and the personal Helen ClayFrick (1888-1984), c.1917,The Frick and financial trust endowed her by Henry Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives Clay Frick gave her the means to steer the OPPOSITE PAGE museum's future course. When the Board of Fra Filippo Lippi (c.1406-1469), TheAnnunciation, c.1440, tempera onpoplar panels, The Frick Collection Trustees formed acommittee on paintings in 6 The Prick Collection PERMANENT COLLECTION 1924,she, rather than its official chairman, on the Mountain (opposite page). In aletter of the seventeenth-century Dutch, Flemish, Horace Harding, took the lead.Between 1924 to Harding, she stressed the painting's sig- and Spanish schools, as well as eighteenth- and 1935,Miss Frickwasthe solemember of nificance: "The history of the Duccio panels century Britishexamples.Hisdesiretofeature the committee recorded ashaving proposed hasno parallel, and ofcourse through allthe splendid paintings in almost allthe rooms of new purchases. The acquisitions that she agesand byaHthe criticsthey areconsidered his horne on East70th Street alsoled hirn to made for the Collection before it opened among themost important pictures inltalian purchase eighteenth-century French painted in 1935responded to its new public role art." In Ianuary of that same year she per- panels such asthe ProgressofLove,the grand by introducing paintings from periods and suaded the dealer FelixWildenstein to write cycleby Jean-Honoré Fragonard. In general, traditions different from those that had been to Harding in support of the acquisition of Frick avoided religious subjects. He said he collected byher father. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres's Comtesse most enjoyed pictures that were "pleasing MissFrickadvocated her most important d'Haussonville (page 11). Wildenstein's let- to livewith." These tended to be large-scale, acquisitions for the Collection while she ter also emphasized the work's historical painterly masterpieces in which virtuoso and her mother, Adelaide, still lived in the importance, and hebacked those claimswith brushwork rather than dramatic subjectspro- mansion on East 70th Street. This period a fully documented dossier on the picture. vided visual excitement. His daughter, on ended with her mother's death in 1931.In When they were acquired by the Frick,both the other hand, waskeenly attracted to early that year, the Trustees appointed The Frick the Duccio and the Ingres were regarded Italian paintings with profound religious Collection's first director, Mortimer Clapp; as masterpieces whose only direct link themes. Although sheadvocated for them for the Board took on increased power; and with Henry Clay Frick's original collection their art historical significance,their aesthetic funding for acquisitions was diverted to was their remarkable quality. Miss Frick's qualities must have appealed to her equally building the new museum addition. From ambition to expand the boundaries of the and sharply distinguished her taste from her 1924to 1931,when the lines between private Collection was boldo But, even during this father's. EarlyItalian pictures, with their glit- and institution al collecting were not yet period of her greatest influence, she could tering gold backgrounds, jewel-like colors, fully drawn, Miss Frick enjoyed the greatest not have enforced such dramatic change and minutely painted details, contributed liberty to shape the collection her father had without the Board's sanction. In 1927the a novel sense of small-scale, finely crafted bequeathed to the public. She established Trustee Walter Hines expressed the Board's splendor to the Collection. The aesthetic sen- early ltalian painting and pre-Impressionist concomitant desire to augment Henry Clay sibility that informed Miss Frick's choices French painting as the new areas in which Frick's bequest. He supported the acquisi- was articulated by the eminent art historian the museum principally collected. She was tion of the Comtesse d'Haussonville, writing, Kenneth Clark, who in 1935commented on attracted to these pictures because they were "Iwould beinsympathy with ... an Ingres of an early Italian painter's works, "it would be art historically important and because they that character in the Gallery,as my impres- amistake to write of them [only] as if they broadened the dimensions of her father's sion is that that particular phase of French were historical specimens or units in an aca- collection. In the summer of 1927,for exam- art is not well represented at present in the dernie scherne:their claim to our attention is ple,MissFricksuccessfullyadvocated forthe Collection ifrepresented at all," their exquisite beauty." The French pictures purchase of Duccio's Temptation of Christ Henry Clay Frick had acquired works Miss Frick proposed to the Board also are of the highest quality that reflected his own notable for their beauty: Ingres's portrait of personal taste. He collected sculpture and the Comtesse d'Haussonville, for instance, was OPPOSITE PAGE DucciodiBuoninsegna (c. 1255-1319), decorative art, but his primary interest was praised in an exhibition catalogue of 1921 TheTemptation ofChristontheMountain, painted painting. He derived his greatest pleasure for its "beautiful contours" and "marmoreal between 1308and 1311,tempera on poplar panel, The FrickCollection from portraits, landscapes, and genresubjects azure opulence." Although Miss Frick was 8 The Prick Collection

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