The Familiar Made Strange

OVER THE decades, I’ve attended a number of special shows at the Frick Museum, and they were frequently eye-opening.

But it is the permanent collection, always consistently and faithfully on display, which has been my real reason for going to the Frick during just about every one of my New York stays.

To visit that grand old mansion on the corner of 70th Street and Fifth Avenue was always a joy in itself: a respite from the busyness of the city, an immersion in luxurious beauty, a fantasy that I myself was the rightful inhabitant of those magical rooms.

(This only worked if I could manage to forget about the unpleasant means by which Mr. Henry Clay Frick had acquired all his money and his art—but since this caveat applies to many of the great collections in America, I have long since gotten used to brushing it under the Aubusson carpets.)

When I taught “New York and the Arts” at Hunter College, I’d always take my freshmen on a field trip to the nearby Frick. I would show them my favorite pictures—the Whistlers, the Vermeers—and explain why I loved them; they in turn would sharpen their critical skills by disagreeing with me and