By Madelia Hickman Ring

NEW YORK CITY – In 2018, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) and the Frick Collection jointly announced that the Frick’s collection, exhibition, library resources and education programs would, in 2020, move to the Madison Avenue site presently occupied by the Met Breuer. The move would allow for continued public access to the Frick’s collection while the Frick’s buildings were undergoing upgrades and renovations. The Met has been using the Met Breuer as a temporary exhibition space for modern and contemporary works while the Met’s own spaces for those works – the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing – underwent rebuilding (these renovations, initially priced at $600 million, were delayed amid budged cuts). According to a New York Times report at the time, the arrangement – which involves the Met essentially subleasing the space to the Frick – stands to save the Met $45 million.

The Met Breuer has been closed since mid March, as has the Met, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, closures that have cost the institution a reported $150 million shortfall and the termination of 81 employees.

In recent days, Artnet News has reported “The Met Breuer will not reopen to the public this summer and we will transition the Breuer building to the Frick as planned,” a Met representative told Artnet News in an email. The end of the Met Breuer means that the institution’s swan song, the highly anticipated Gerhard Richter exhibition, “Gerhard Richter: Painting After All,” was open to the public a grand total of nine days.

The Frick has not announced when it will transition to the Met Breuer building.