Frick Collection

The Frick Collection is a small museum of European paintings, sculptures and decorative arts housed in the former New York City residence of industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The institution displays Frick’s bequest in the mansion’s period rooms on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Intimate galleries present a focused selection of old master paintings and fine European decorative arts arranged in the mansion’s original rooms, giving a domestic-scale presentation rather than a large encyclopedic museum layout. Temporary exhibitions and loans occasionally supplement the permanent displays.

Henry Clay Frick assembled the collection during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and specified in his will that it be maintained as a public museum; the house opened to the public in the 1930s. The collection has been managed and displayed continuously since then, with conservation and selective renovations to adapt the house for museum use.

The museum occupies the Frick house at 1 East 70th Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a short walk from Central Park and accessible by city transit.

• Setting and origin: Housed in the former Frick family mansion on the Upper East Side, the collection was bequeathed by industrialist Henry Clay Frick for public display.