The Frick Collection will present Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture from Feb. 12 through May 25, marking the first New York exhibition devoted exclusively to the English artist Thomas Gainsborough’s portraits.
Featuring more than two dozen paintings, the exhibition explores the close relationship between portraiture and fashion in the 18th century, examining how clothing, style, and material culture shaped identity, status, and social meaning in Gainsborough’s work. The show draws from the Frick’s permanent collection as well as loans from institutions and private collections across North America and the United Kingdom.
Gainsborough’s portraits were created in a world saturated with fashion, from tailor shops and promenades to theaters and periodicals. The exhibition considers not only the garments depicted in his paintings, but also how portraits functioned as active participants in shaping ideas of taste, class and self-presentation.
“The spectacular and, to modern eyes, sometimes absurd fashions in portraits by Thomas Gainsborough continue to fascinate viewers today,” said Aimee Ng, the Frick’s Peter Jay Sharp chief curator and organizer of the exhibition. “The show explores how fashion was understood in Gainsborough’s time and how portraiture itself was a construction, much like personal style.”
Highlights include early “conversation pieces” that blend portraiture and landscape, society portraits that conveyed reputation and honor, and works that challenged social hierarchies. The exhibition juxtaposes aristocratic sitters with artists, actors, and figures on the margins of fashionable Georgian society, including Ignatius Sancho, a formerly enslaved composer depicted in the attire of a gentleman.
The exhibition also examines Gainsborough’s artistic process through recent technical studies, revealing connections between painting materials and the fashion industry, including textiles, dyes and cosmetics. Several works demonstrate how portraits were altered over time to reflect changing styles or commemorate personal events.
Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture will be accompanied by lectures, concerts, and public programs, as well as an illustrated exhibition catalogue published by Rizzoli Electa. The exhibition is on view at The Frick Collection, 1 East 70th St. in Manhattan.
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