The Frick Collection, Garden North and East Facades RP/1/14/15/2

An ink and pencil design on tracing paper dated April 1976, marked 'Frick Collection, Sketch plan garden N & E facades, scale 1/4" = 1 foot.' The lower drawing shows the east wall; there are trellises indicated in the three niches (with pyracantha to climb up them). A statue on a pedestal sits within the central niche; two bench seats occupy the two side niches, following the design indicated in plan B (RP/1/14/15/1). Plants to climb the walls at either end are suggested: ‘loosish vines Rosa Mermaid or Rosa Albéric Barbier’ at the southern end, ‘clematis montana grandiflora and clematis Madame le Coultre’ at the northern. The upper drawing shows the north wall. It is likely that there are four fountain jets included at intervals along the base of the wall (see RP/1/14/15/5). A cross section of the wall is also shown; this indicates Page’s plan for a planter filled with a screen of trees to sit on top of the wall.

One of Russell Page’s few public commissions, his design for the 70th Street garden at The Frick Collection, a museum close to Central Park in Manhattan’s East Side, is an excellent example of his ability to develop his plan around the particularities of the site. Constructed in 1977, it still survives to this day. Its popularity was made evident in 2015 when public protests successfully halted plans to demolish it.