Frick leader resigns after a period of fourteen years
After fourteen years at the helm of the Frick Collection, during which the art museum finally completed a controversial expansion of its Gilded Age mansion on Fifth Avenue—and temporarily moved into the modernist Breuer Building on Madison Avenue—the director, Ian Wardroppersaid he would retire next year.
“My goal is to leave the institution in good shape programmatically and financially and that will be the case,” the 72-year-old Wardropper said in a telephone interview. “I hope I can pass it on to someone with fresh ideas.”
The announcement is the latest in a series of major resignations by leaders of major museums, including the Guggenheim, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In addition, the contract of Glenn D. Lowry, MoMA’s longtime director, expires next year.
Such leadership transitions have provided cultural institutions with the opportunity – or even the mandate – for a reset, especially at a time when job descriptions have become increasingly complex and diversity concerns have become more pressing.
The Frick is particularly associated with the past, due to its historic collection of old masters such as Bellini, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals, as well as its location in the monumental 1914 former residence of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, designed by Carrère and Hastings.
While many museums have adjusted their programs in response to the intense demand for contemporary art of the past decade, the Frick under Wardropper has steadfastly stuck to its founding principles of focusing on masterpieces from the Renaissance to the early 20th century.
Only recently, in its temporary home, the former Whitney Museum, did the Frick seem to loosen its tie and display his Turners, Sargents, and Fragonards alongside an exhibition devoted to the black painter Barkley L. Hendricks (1945–2017), the first artist van color to have a solo exhibition in the museum since its founding in 1935.
The museum also recently presented “Living Histories: Strange Views and Old Masters‘ with four contemporary artists – Doron Langberg, Salman Toor, Jenna Gribbon and Toyin Ojih Odutola – offering works that deal with issues of gender and queer identity, stories previously excluded in a museum focused on European art.
“I had to talk some administrators through that because it was further away from what they perceived as the Frick,” Wardropper said of the show. “But it brought new audiences and new programs, which opened up people’s ideas about what the Frick could be.”
Max Hollein, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said Wardropper had shown “diplomatic qualities” by moving the Frick into the present while honoring the past. “He opened a dialogue with contemporary thinkers and cultural figures,” Hollein said. “You can see The Frick as a very static collection. I think Ian changed that.”
The Frick’s renovation aims to renew the museum’s visitor experience by improving circulation, amenities, infrastructure and wheelchair accessibility – in an effort to meet the needs of the modern audience without compromising the quality of the jewel box . It also opens the restored second-floor living space of Frick and his wife, Adelaide Howard Childs Frick, which was previously used as museum offices and not open to the public.
Average visitor numbers before the pandemic were between 285,000 and 300,000 per year. The museum’s annual operating budget of approximately $30 million is expected to increase only slightly in the expanded building.
As to whether the Frick should and will do more Hendricks-style shows, Wardropper said the museum would continue to seek “a balance.”
“We are not a contemporary art institution and we are in a city that is full of it,” he said. “Where we can make a difference is an intersection with contemporary art that is meaningful and does not lose our mandate: to continue to try to get younger audiences interested in older art.”
“I think we especially need to show younger people that if they pay attention and dig deep,” he added, “they can really come up with something interesting.”
The Frick was repeatedly thwarted in its previous expansion efforts, and Wardropper clearly bears some battle scars. Despite fierce protests, the museum’s renovation efforts failed three times – in 2001, 2005 and 2008 – before a plan was finally approved in 2018.
Preservationists, designers, critics and architects opposed Frick’s attempt to eliminate the tranquil garden on East 70th Street, designed by British landscape architect Russell Page, and were concerned about the loss of the museum’s intimate scale. Among the demonstrators were members of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commissiontogether with a coalition Unite to save the Frick.
“Gardens are works of art,” Robert AM Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, said at the time. “This is in perfect condition and is by Russell Page, one of the leading garden designers of the 20th century, and should be respected as such. It is as important as a tapestry or even a painting, and I think the museum has an obligation to recognize its importance.”
They also objected to the museum’s transformation of the music room into a gallery for special exhibitions. The music room, which will be used for performances and lectures, has been moved underground. But Wardropper said he harbors no ill will and is pleased with the outcome. “The only thing we didn’t get was a loading dock,” he said.
“I can’t afford to hold grudges and remain unhappy; I just had to keep moving forward,” he said. “A few years ago I felt pretty beat up, but it makes it all the more satisfying to see us get to the end. There are still a few neighbors who aren’t entirely happy, but I think most people have come to understand that the Frick needs this.
Under Annabelle Selldorf’s current plan, the Frick is restoring the garden to honor Page’s original vision, in consultation with Lynden B. Miller, a garden designer and conservationist. Instead of building over the garden, as previously planned, the Frick built under it. And through a new connector, the public can now go from the museum to the art reference library without going outside.
The new Frick, expected to open at the end of this year, will also include a new education centre, a small café and an extensive museum shop. (Frick’s access restriction for children 10 years and older remains in effect.)
As for the future, Wardropper said he is working on two books, one with Selldorf about the renovation, and another about Frick and his daughter Helen as collectors. “I’m looking forward to catching my breath,” he said.
While the board will undertake an international search for his successor, Wardropper said it would be great if that person came “from within” and that he hoped Xavier F. Salomon, the deputy director and chief curator “will be one of the candidates.”
With a Ph.D. Having studied art history at New York University, Wardropper previously spent ten years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he ended his tenure as chairman of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. Previously, he worked for twenty years at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was curator of European decorative arts, sculpture and ancient art.
During his tenure at the Frick, Wardropper has overseen a $290 million capital campaign for the renovation, of which approximately 83 percent – $242 million – has been raised to date.
He also expanded the board from 18 to 24 (there are three descendants of Frick and one emerita), and developed the funny series “Cocktails with a curator” for YouTube – during the pandemic that paired a crash course on a work of art from the collection with a drink related to that era. (It became a book and an international hit with many who had never been to the museum before.)
Now in its eighth year, The Frick’s partnership with the Ghetto Film School connects young filmmakers with the museum’s collection.
With the construction project still unfinished, Wardropper still has work to do, namely returning the art and staff to their original home and raising money for exhibitions through 2027. “It’s going to be a very intense year,” he said.
But the director also said he is positive about the way the museum is becoming more open and accessible to a broader visitor population.
“The Frick has been an ivory tower in many people’s minds whose key has been thrown away,” he said. “I think we’ve unlocked it.”