Covering a wide array of great paintings, as well as rarely-published sculptural treasures and numerous masterpieces of the decorative arts, this is an illustrated survey of the Frick Collection, housed in a Fifth Avenue mansion in New York City. It was founded by Henry Clay Frick, an industrialist whose interest in and knowledge of art led him to begin buying artworks in about 1880. Separate sections of the book are devoted to paintings, sculpture and the decorative arts, presenting colour reproductions of some of the collection's most prized works. They include Bellini's "St Francis in the Desert", Holbein the Younger's portrait of Sir Thomas More, El Greco's "Purification of the Temple", three Vermeers, seascapes and landscapes by Turner, and works by Degas, Renoir, Monet and Whistler. There are also portrait busts by Andrea del Verrocchio and Jean-Antoine Houdon, and furniture made for Marie-Antoinette, as well as views of the mansion and the richly furnished rooms in which the works are installed.
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Review:
In Art in the Frick Collection, museum director Charles Ryskamp takes readers on a tour of the Frick's permanent collection, including paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer as well as Renaissance sculpture and 18th-century French furnishings. Ryskamp begins with a biography of Henry Clay Frick, detailing his development as an art collector, and then guides us through the evolution of the museum, which is housed in the Fifth Avenue mansion Frick himself helped design and in which he lived until his death. Large (in some cases full-page) photographs of art are naturally the focus here, but the accompanying text, written by the museum's curators, elucidates both the work and the artists who rendered it. Illustrating why Frick's collection is a model for many other notable American art collections, this graceful book is worth the price of admission.
About the Author:
Charles Ryskamp is a renowned scholar, collector and former director of The Pierpont Morgan Library (1969 - 1987) and The Frick Collection (1987 - 1997). He lives in New York City and Princeton, New Jersey.
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