Professor: Ellen Prokop
Schedule: Tuesday, 3:30-6:30 p.m.
Credits: 4 credit course, includes additional experiential sessions
The challenge:
In 2020, the Frick will embark on an expansion that will address institutional needs and enhance visitor amenities. While this building project is underway, a temporary exhibition space and reading room known as “Frick Madison” will open in the historic Breuer Building at 945 Madison. Although this relocation will ensure that the public will have continued access to the Frick’s masterpieces and research resources throughout the renovations, the move will be a complex undertaking that raises many questions for the staff. For example, which works of art from the permanent collection should be on view at Frick Madison? How should they be displayed? How will the new space transform public and educational programming? How can the galleries and library be fully integrated during this period? These are some of the challenges currently facing the institution’s leaders. This course will explore these and additional opportunities afforded by the Frick’s relocation, assess various solutions, and ultimately determine innovative ways to steward the Frick’s multiple collections in its temporary home.
About the organization:
The Frick Collection, located in Manhattan, comprises an internationally renowned old masters gallery and art research library. Housed in the renovated Gilded Age mansion of the Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919), the gallery features paintings by Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788), Francisco de Goya (1746–1828), and James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), among other artists. The adjacent library, founded in 1920 by Henry Clay Frick’s daughter, preserves more than 412,000 volumes and 1.2 million study photographs.
