Visitors say they are excited to see the renovated and expanded museum.
NEW YORK – Five years later and $220 million, the newly renovated and much-loved Frick Collection Art Museum has reopened its doors to the public on April 17th.
The Classical Art Museum has been closed since the launch of Covid-19 in 2020. The first major renovation in 90 years has added a second floor, an underground auditorium and new space for research.
“I think it’s epic,” Susie Kolb told The Epoch Times. “I think it’s the same, but not. Of course, all the paintings look very beautiful, because they are masterpieces.”
Korb visited the Flick Collection every few years of closure. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is home to Henry Clay Frick, the hometown of her collection.
Korb says his favorite part of the museum is “the unique vision of the collector, the fact that it was only one person who continued it, the curator. It really accumulates the collection with a clear perspective and is housed in the environment in which it was created.”
The Flick Collection is a personal art collection of Fick, a golden age cola (a type of coal-based fuel) and steel giants. He was a business partner of steel billionaire Andrew Carnegie. Flick later partnered with renowned banker JP Morgan to invest in the American rail system. The collection is located in Flick’s mansion near Central Park in Manhattan. The mansion is rich in Beaux-Arts architecture, marble flooring and beautiful gardens.
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The flick was first opened to the public in 1934. Includes 1,800 pieces of fine decorative art. Half of the artwork was not part of Flick’s original collection, but was added after his death in 1919.
One of Korb’s favorite parts about flicks is the lack of glass protection against everything. “It’s very safe to say that the old flicks didn’t have anything under the glass (that’s what’s under the glass) (under the glass). But when you go and see what you want to see and it’s under the glass, it somehow, through this installation, the great masterpieces of furniture, floral arrangements, and it only gives you a merciless understanding of the collection.”
Veronica Smith said she loves the design and history of the buildings of the Golden Age. “I love architecture. I’m an architect, so I love spaces,” she said. Smith had been visiting Mexico City with his daughter.
We will take a walk through the garden courts on April 17th, 2025, with the reopening of our New York flick collection. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
“I love the feeling in a space, a particular space. You know, you can translate it in different styles and different parts, but I think the way space makes you feel is to understand the way people lived before.
The carefully constructed gallery of halls, stone pillars and flicks is decorated with European paintings, sculptures and Chinese porcelain from the 14th and 19th centuries. Many of the mansions have returned to Henry Frick’s days, so they are decorated and laid out. Old bookshelves, chairs and curtains set observers in the age of flick’s extraordinary wealth.
Ivan Samoylenko was waiting for months to be able to visit the collection for the first time. “I love the museum. I’ve been waiting almost a year for this opening, but now I’m here.”
Ivan Samoirenko at Garden Court on April 17, 2025, reopening the New York Flick Collection. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
Samoylenko is originally from Moscow, Russia and studies at George Washington University. He said that the flick is like the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, and is a very large and old European museum.
He loved displays of porcelain flowers throughout the gallery, saying, “makes the room fresh.”
Another new admirer of Flick is Lizzie Costigan. She almost accidentally decided to visit the museum. She wanted to visit somewhere else for her 25th birthday, but it was sold out. In her despair, she came across a flick collection and thought she would give it a try. Staff let her in despite the tickets being sold out.
“I (the staff) said it was my birthday. She came to me, even if she was sold out, so they were so lovely,” she said.
She said she went to an art collection in Europe but wasn’t a home in New York. She enjoyed the flick and said, “It’s really beautiful. I loved all the trees outside. I liked how nature joined the art. I love it.”
Lizzy Costigan at Garden Court reopening of New York’s flick collection on April 17, 2025. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
She especially loved Four Seasons, a four-painting series by French artist François Boucher. “I like the range of seasons, and it was really good, like the way they specifically painted their eyes.”
The Flick Collection is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11am to 6pm, with adult tickets for $30 and free visits for those under 18 years old.
