Frick Madison – Serendipity and Possibility

*This event is occurring as a live webinar. Registrants will be emailed a link to access the program; please continue to register.*

The venerable Frick Collection is moving to a temporary new home while its 5th Avenue facility expands and upgrades. For the next two years, the Frick will operate a new venue, the Frick Madison, within the Breuer Building on 78th and Madison, previous home to the Met Breuer and the Whitney Museum. This new venue will mark a departure from the institution’s customary residential presentation. Join us for a lively, illuminating discussion about the challenges of displaying and installing an international, world-class collection in a temporary facility. Directors of the Frick and their design team will discuss the strategy and design to juxtapose their collection of Old Masters, such as Bellini, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, within the confines of a Brutalist 20th-century landmark building.

Moderator:
Susan West, Project Development Director, Big Show Consulting & Management

Panelists:
Annabelle Selldorf, FAIA, Principal, Selldorf Architects
Anna Boatwright, Head of Business Strategy & Development, The Frick Collection
Carolyn W. Straub, AIA, LEED AP, Associate Director for Capital Projects, The Frick Collection
Stephen Saitas, Principal, Stephen Saitas Designs

About the speakers:

Anna Boatwright specializes in museum operations and revenue management and has a background in corporate and institutional fundraising. Boatwright began working with the Frick’s capital projects group since the renewal of its renovation and enhancement project in 2017 and led initiatives in the move to Frick Madison. She has worked previously with the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She earned her Master in Art & Museum Studies from Georgetown University and her MBA from Columbia Business School.

Annabelle Selldorf is the Principal of Selldorf Architects, a 60-person architectural design practice that she founded in New York City in 1988. The firm has worked on public and private projects that range from museums and libraries to a recycling facility, and at scales from the construction of new buildings to the restoration of historic interiors and exhibition design. Cultural clients include the Frick Collection, Hispanic Society Museum & Library, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Clark Art Institute, and Neue Galerie New York. She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and serves on the Board of the Architectural League of New York, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the World Monuments Fund, the Chinati Foundation, and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

Carolyn Straub joined the Frick Collection in 2017, where she is responsible for managing their major renovation and enhancement project, the first in the museum’s 85-year history. She earned her undergraduate degree in Architecture with honors from Princeton University and her Masters in Architecture with honors from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Before joining the Frick, Straub was an Associate Partner at Beyer Blinder Belle Architects, where she specialized in institutional and museum planning, renovation, and new construction projects. Major projects included the Metropolitan Museum of Art Master Plan; Met Breuer; the Toledo Museum of Art Master Plan; Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp, Belgium; Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, KYl and the High Line Maintenance & Operations Facility.

Stephen Saitas is Principal of Stephen Saitas Designs (SSD), a firm that provides exhibition design and related graphic design for permanent collection galleries and temporary or travelling exhibitions. SSD has completed over three hundred projects in more than fifty institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, the Morgan Library & Museum; New York Public Library; Yale Center for British Art; Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Denver Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Recently completed projects include the exhibition design for Frick Madison, in collaboration with Selldorf Architects. Upcoming projects include three reinstallations of permanent collection galleries for the Denver Art Museum. SSD is also responsible for the exhibition design of Made in LA 2020, a version, for The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, a biannual exhibition organized with The Hammer Museum.