Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters
The Frick Collection, New York, NY

Living Histories Project Continues This Winter and Spring

A Painting by Jenna Gribbon to be Shown in Conversation with Holbein’s Portrait of Thomas Cromwell
JANUARY 27 THROUGH MAY 22, 2022

New York (January 27, 2022)— The Frick’s acclaimed reframing, ongoing in its temporary location known as Frick Madison during the renovation of its historic buildings, has given the public a chance to view collection highlights in a very different setting. In recent months, the curatorial team has presented a project in the Northern European galleries that, over the course of a year, welcomes the voices of four contemporary artists. Each presents a single new work in conversation with an iconic painting from the Frick’s collection, with particular emphasis on issues of gender and queer identity typically excluded from narratives of early modern European art. This winter and spring, Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters continues with a painting by Jenna Gribbon (b. Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, 1978), shown with the portrait Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein the Younger. This juxtaposition follows the inaugural
presentations by Salman Toor (b. Lahore, Pakistan, 1983) and Doron Langberg (b. Yokneam Moshava, Israel, 1985), whose works were on view this fall and winter alongside paintings by Johannes Vermeer and Holbein, respectively. This spring and summer, the Frick will present the final chapter in the series, a portrait by Toyin Ojih Odutola (b. Ile-Ife, Nigeria, 1985), shown alongside Frick works by Rembrandt.

Living Histories is jointly organized by Xavier F. Salomon, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, and Aimee Ng, Curator. It is the most recent project in past years in a series of collaborations with living artists that have included publications and lectures, as well as installations at the Frick mansion by Arlene Shechet and Edmund de Waal. The artists collaborating on Living Histories—like so many of the Frick’s staff and the museum’s founder, Henry Clay Frick—are not originally from New York, but all chose this city as a home for their careers and relationships. To this project, the artists bring contemporary perspectives on Frick works, resulting in a celebration of the past and present that reveals the power of creating conversations across histories, geographies, and cultures.

Comments Salomon, “We have deeply enjoyed collaborating with a group of artists whose work engages with traditions of European art history. They have been most generous in sharing their thoughts on the power of our traditional figurative holdings, creating not only new paintings, but developing with us audio and video content accessible to audiences everywhere.” Adds Curator Aimee Ng, “We’re so excited to have Jenna’s painting at Frick Madison. Created in response to Holbein’s portraits of powerful men, her portrait sets up a new conversation with the Frick’s historic art and its legacies, speaking across centuries and in very different contexts to look at where we are now. When I think of Holbein’s portraits at the Frick—Thomas More (on loan to The Morgan Library & Museum while Jenna’s painting is up) and Thomas Cromwell—I think also of the defining events of their lives and their roles in King Henry VIII’s disposal of wives to bear a son. Jenna’s painting intrudes on that narrative, bringing to light dynamics of power, gender, and sexuality at play then and now.”

Images courtesy Fredericks & Freiser Gallery Archives.