The Frick Collection’s epic $220 million, five-year renovation was one of the art world’s biggest stories this spring. Now, the New York museum is making headlines again – this time by enlisting the talents of Steve Martin to mark and promote its grand reopening.
In a six-minute video – published on The Frick’s website and social media channels – the Only Murders in the Building actor takes viewers on a tour of the museum. As he moves through the Gilded Age mansion that houses the collections (which were temporarily relocated to the brutalist Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue during the renovation), Martin shares a brief history of The Frick Collection, which opened in 1935, and its founder, Henry Clay Frick. He highlights the museum’s reputation as one of the finest small collections of European fine and decorative arts in the US, showcasing everything from Old Master paintings to French furniture and Limoges enamel.
The actor encourages viewers to visit the Frick in person and experience its treasures slowly and reflectively. ‘This is what The Frick Collection is for,’ he says. ‘For slowing down, following your eye, and getting closer to objects of beauty and awe that are always right here, waiting for us behind these historic doors.’
If you, like us, are wondering, why Martin? – a Frick spokesperson has explained that the actor is a longtime member and fan of the museum, as well as an iconic New York figure. He’s also a serious art collector, having described collecting as his ‘biggest hobby’, and is reportedly the owner of works by Picasso, Francis Bacon and Roy Lichtenstein.
We’d like to think that his appearance is also a wink to his 2006 role as the museum-heist-investigating Inspector Jacques Clouseau in The Pink Panther – proving that even a bastion of classic art isn’t above a little playful irony.
Video credits: Video by SandenWolff. Writer: Rachel Wolff . Director: Jonathan Sanden. Photography: Noah Therrien, Jonathan Sanden, Nate Reininga, Thomas Lange. Editors: Hannah Kaylor, Jonathan Sanden. Music: Noah Therrien. Producers: Alexis Light, Katherine Ellis, Lisa Goble. Additional Footage: George Koelle. Editorial: Noah Purdy, Vincent Tolentino
-
The architectural innovation hidden in plain sight at Frieze London 2025The 2025 Frieze entrance pavilions launch this week alongside the art fair, showcasing a brand-new, modular building system set to shake up the architecture of large-scale events
-
Chantal Joffe paints the truth of memory and motherhood in a new London showA profound chronicler of the intimacies of the female experience, Chantal Joffe explores the elemental truth of family dynamics for a new exhibition at Victoria Miro
-
This 100-year-old private members’ club in London feels young at heartThe Sloane Club unveils a stylish new rebrand and redesign courtesy of Russell Sage Studio
-
Jamel Shabazz’s photographs are a love letter to Prospect ParkIn a new book, ‘Prospect Park: Photographs of a Brooklyn Oasis, 1980 to 2025’, Jamel Shabazz discovers a warmer side of human nature
-
The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles launches the seventh iteration of its highly anticipated artist biennialOne of the gallery's flagship exhibitions, Made in LA showcases the breadth and depth of the city's contemporary art scene
-
Thomas Prior’s photography captures the uncanny fragility of American lifeA new book unites two decades of the photographer’s piercing, uneasy work
-
Central Park’s revitalised Delacorte Theater gears up for a new futureEnnead Architects helmed an ambitious renovation process that has given the New York City cultural landmark a vibrant and more accessible future
-
Stephen Prina borrows from pop, classical and modern music: now MoMA pays tribute to his performance work‘Stephen Prina: A Lick and a Promise’ recalls the artist, musician, and composer’s performances, and is presented throughout MoMA. Prina tells us more
-
Curtains up, Kid Harpoon rethinks the sound of Broadway production ‘Art’He’s crafted hits with Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus; now songwriter and producer Kid Harpoon (aka Tom Hull) tells us about composing the music for the new, all-star Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s play ‘Art’
-
Richard Prince recontextualises archival advertisements in TexasThe artist unites his ‘Posters’ – based on ads for everything from cat pictures to nudes – at Hetzler, Marfa
-
The best Ruth Asawa exhibition is actually on the streets of San FranciscoThe artist, now the subject of a major retrospective at SFMOMA, designed many public sculptures scattered across the Bay Area – you just have to know where to look
