Aimee Ng

You asked and we listened! Based on The Frick Collection’s acclaimed video series of the same name, the Cocktails with a Curator book is now available. Here, watch as curators Xavier F. Salomon, Aimee Ng, and Giulio Dalvit reflect on the unexpected popularity of the series and their excitement to share engaging histories of Frick artworks, paired with themed drinks, with readers around the world. Cheers!

In this episode of Where in the World?, Curator Aimee Ng dives deep into the history of pearls and their appearance in paintings by Vermeer. In seventeenth-century Holland, pearls signified a wearer’s ability to purchase the expensive natural gems, which skilled divers in the Dutch colonies harvested from the Indian Ocean under dangerous conditions.

Curator Aimee Ng sits down for a conversation with Doron Langberg, one of the four contemporary artists participating in Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters. Doron describes developing his artistic sensibility from a young age, finding his footing in New York City, and delving into the painterly language of the Old Masters from a queer perspective to produce his painting Lover—on view at Frick Madison adjacent to Hans Holbein the Younger’s Sir Thomas More into January 2022.

In this episode of "Where in the World?," Curator Aimee Ng discusses the use of gold in a rare painting by Duccio. Signifying both a sacred realm and material riches, the precious metal has a history intertwined with trade, conquest, and colonization in West Africa and beyond.

Duccio's Temptation of Christ on the Mountain

To learn more:

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, Curator Aimee Ng bids farewell to the series with a discussion of Joshua Reynolds’s Selina, Lady Skipwith, currently on view on the fourth floor of Frick Madison. Seen here with a nosegay tucked into her neck kerchief and a pallid countenance (made more so by the application of poisonous lead makeup), Selina was thirty-five years old when she sat for this portrait and had recently married the politician and baronet Thomas Skipwith despite misgivings about the union.

In the inaugural episode of "Where in the World?," Curator Aimee Ng explores the history of mahogany, a material hidden beneath the surface of a Rembrandt portrait and sourced oceans away from the famed artist's homeland.

Rembrandt's Nicolaes Ruts

To learn more:

Lamb, Bruce F. Mahogany of Tropical America: Its Ecology and Management. Ann Arbor, 1996.

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, Curator Aimee Ng looks closely at a pair of Chinese porcelain ladies made by an unidentified artist during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (1662–1722). Currently on view in Frick Madison’s celebrated Porcelain Room, these colorful figures are among the most beloved decorative arts objects in the Frick’s collection and exemplify period ideals of female beauty, with manicured hands, lithe bodies, and lavish garments embellished with chrysanthemums.

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, Curator Aimee Ng explores the turbulent life of the woman portrayed in James McNeill Whistler’s serene Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux, currently on view on the fourth floor of Frick Madison. A former bartender and actress, Lady Meux was shunned by London polite society even after she married Sir Henry Bruce Meux, heir to a huge brewery fortune.

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, savor the exquisite details of Comtesse Daru, the only painting in the Frick’s collection by renowned French neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David. Join Curator Aimee Ng as she delves into the history of how this lovely, intimate portrait came to be painted by an artist largely known for producing monumental works in the service of Napoleon. This week’s complementary cocktail, the Orange Blossom, is inspired by the orange-blossom tiara thatadorns the sitter's head.