I got to spend parts of two days in the Frick last week in New York, thanks to my membership at WAMA and its North American Reciprocal agreement with scores of museums. The Frick is marvelous. It's a stunning, yet manageably sized, collection in a beautiful home, and the central courtyard garden reminded me of the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston. The Frick has multiple Vermeers, a Van Eyck, Rembrandts, a stunning Constable (he's one of my favorites), a pair of Holbein portraits that I love, and a series of larger than life Whistler portraits that really grabbed me. I found a second hand book on Whistler in Venice a year or so ago, and I like him more and more. There was also an exquisite small collection of his lithographs and etchings.

It was much quieter than the Metropolitan, and with the modest size of the collection, I could see everything and still have time to sketch. I went back my last day, just walked up Central Park with my backpack and went straight from there to the airport. A perfect last day. This is my collection of two days' worth of sketches there. You can see that I had a ball with the Whistlers. I also sketched the garden a couple of times, both in my small sketchbook and in my larger watercolor one.