Reframing The Frick as student-friendly

The Frick Collection may be the only museum in New York with floors mostly done up in carpeting. Visitors shuffle by on it, quietly observing the Monets and Manets, Rembrandts and Vermeers that Henry Clay Frick acquired over his lifetime. The collection, housed in his former mansion on the Upper East Side, is part historical object and part high-class home. This year, it celebrates its 75th anniversary.

As the establishment gets older, it becomes more noticeable that the patrons follow the same trajectory of dignified traditionalism. The Frick has never been one for a young crowd—it has an air of refinement that speaks more overtly to the lady who lunches than the youth who rebels. Yet with such canonical works, the Frick seems like it should fit easily into the art repertoire of a New York college student.

After all, founder Henry Clay Frick should be a character many Columbians can relate to. He grew up a middle-class child of a whiskey distributor, he wasn’t very good at sports, and he had a whole lot of ambition. After becoming one of the barons of the Industrial Revolution (and surviving an anarchist assassination attempt), Frick began collecting art, specifically the old masters. In 1914, he built the mansion that now is The Frick Collection, located at 1 E. 70th St. and encompassing nearly an entire city block between 70th and Fifth avenues. Designed to become a museum upon Frick’s death in 1919, doors finally opened to the public in 1935.

The Frick is certainly unlike the superstars of the New York museum circuit—it does not have the white walls of the MoMA or the glass-boxed relics of the Met. The Collection is maintained to look much as it did when Frick himself lived there. Leather bound books line some of the walls. Portraits hang over fireplaces. Decorative furniture is placed strategically throughout the space.

Can these delicacies of the Frick even compare to the granddaddy of all American art museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art? When one wants to see art, it would be logical to see it all, from ancient to modern, decorative to fine, all in one visit. But the Frick is focused and refined, a niche of old masters in a specific setting. One doesn’t travel from the temples of Egypt to the monuments of Greece—rather, one walks from sitting room to sitting room.

Could the Frick’s historical portraiture compare to the spectacle of the MoMA, to watching Marina Abramović stare at James Franco? (Or Sharon Stone or Rufus Wainwright or Lou Reed?) These modern pieces may seem more relevant and exciting, or at least more readily understandable to the college student. Not to mention, for Columbia students, these heavy hitters of the NYC museum circuit are absolutely free.

“If you can provide free admission you can really encourage people to experiment and explore throughout New York,” Eleanor Milburn, associate director of External Relations at CUarts, said in regard to their program, Passport to NY, which provides free admission for Columbia students to many cultural institutions. While the Frick costs only five dollars for students, getting to see some of the most valuable works of art in the world at no cost is a major incentive.

Just over a year ago, CUarts reached out via social media to ask what other cultural institutions Columbia students would be interested in having in the program. When the New York Transit Museum was suggested, Milburn worked with them to become part of the Passport to NY program. “We listen to the students,” she said. “Through our Facebook, they ask for a particular museum—we’ll try to get that one on board.”

But perhaps the problem isn’t that college students don’t want to come, but that it just isn’t as obvious as the MoMAs and Mets of the city. “When I tell people I work at The Frick Collection, they either have never heard of it, or it’s their favorite museum in New York,” Assistant Museum Educator Jennie Coyne said. “The Frick sells itself, we just need people to come here.”

And when they do, they’ll find that the museum does offer events for college students—it’s just that they aren’t as geared toward the party-animal side of the art lover. Instead of hosting an Animal Collective concert like the Guggenheim, the Frick caters to college students with events that suit its primary strength—the individual, intimate connections it fosters between viewers and works of art.

On Friday nights, the museum offers “Art Dialogues,” where college students and young professionals come in to the galleries for free. The group examines a particular piece in the collection, led by Rika Burnham, the Head of Education at the Frick.

Perhaps the best thing the Frick can offer students is its immersive experience. Observing works in the museum is probably the farthest one can get from the cube of a dormitory most Columbia students call home.

“You just need to come to feel the atmosphere, and feel that you’re really stepped into a moment in time, the history of New York, the gilded age,” Coyne said. “To enjoy art the way someone intended to enjoy it in 1919 is a really unique experience, and largely appeals to everyone, including college students, who live such fast-paced lives.”

Indeed, seeing an iconic work in the Frick, like Hans Holbein’s painting of Sir Thomas More, or Rembrandt’s self-portrait, is far different from seeing it at the Met or MoMA. The crowds are smaller and more polite. No photography is allowed, which means no jostling from tourists trying to get a picture before they move on to the next piece. The only sounds are murmurs of admiration, or the trickling of water from the fountain in the indoor courtyard. Open benches and decorative couches provide comfortable vantage points to see the pieces. This means that visitors do not merely see works from Titian, El Greco, Rembrandt, and Monet, but can truly enjoy them as well.