Beginning February 12, 2026, The Frick Collection will present its first special exhibition dedicated to the English artist Thomas Gainsborough, and the first devoted to his portraiture ever held in New York.
Displaying more than two dozen paintings, the show will explore the richly interwoven relationship between Gainsborough’s portraits and fashion in the eighteenth century. The works included represent some of the greatest achievements from every stage of this period-defining artist’s career, drawn from the Frick’s holdings and from collections across North America and the United Kingdom.
The trappings and trade of fashion filled Gainsborough’s world—in magazines and tailor shops, at the opera and on promenades—and his portraits were at the heart of it all. This exhibition invites visitors to consider not only the clothing the artist depicted in his paintings, but also the role of his canvases as both records of and players in the larger conception of fashion: encompassing everything from class, wealth, labor, and craft to formality, intimacy, and time. Recent technical investigations also shed light on Gainsborough’s artistic process, including connections to materials—textiles, dyes, cosmetics, jewelry—that fueled the fashion industry.
Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture is organized by Aimee Ng, the museum’s Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator.
thematic threads
Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture explores numerous themes threading through the artist’s career, as well as the expansive layers of meaning that fashion held in his time.
Three early works in the show represent the painter’s innovations in the so-called “conversation piece”—including the exceptional loan of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (previous page, right)—which allowed Gainsborough to practice his beloved landscape painting while satisfying the fashionable conventions of what he called the “curs’d Face Business.”
Other works exemplify society portraits’ power to depict subjects not only as fashionable, but as people “of fashion,” which carried deeper meanings of reputation and honorability. In Mary, Countess Howe (previous page, left), Gainsborough meticulously documents every element of a new aristocrat’s attire, while men’s trappings often more readily communicated profession and status, such as a Royal Navy captain’s gold-trimmed uniform.
The exhibition also considers how portraiture both reinforced and challenged social hierarchies, especially for sitters on the margins of the Georgian era’s fashionable class. Among the dukes and duchesses we find portraits of Gainsborough himself and his family members; actors, musicians, and an eccentric inventor; the unrecognized Catholic wife of the Prince of Wales; and even a dog and her puppy.
In one salient pairing, visitors will encounter portraits of Mary, Duchess of Montagu (ca. 1768, Duke of Buccleuch, Bowhill House), and her servant, Ignatius Sancho (1768, National Gallery of Canada). The latter, born into enslavement, became a celebrated composer and one of the most famous Afro-Britons of his time; in his likeness, the artist dresses him in the coat and waistcoat of a gentleman, not in the livery he donned in the Montagu household.
Visitors will also learn about Gainsborough’s use of “Van Dyck dress,” which evokes the Old Master painter from a century earlier. While a copy after Van Dyck is included alongside Bernard Howard, Later 12th Duke of Norfolk (1788, His Grace, the Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle, Sussex)—whose billowing black costume emulates his noble ancestors—the style also elevated those without such a legacy, notably the scandal-ridden Grace Dalrymple Elliott.
Finally, portraits could even mark time, from shifting trends to the social “seasons” in London and Bath to youth and aging. Technical examinations reveal Gainsborough’s fascinating practice of reworking pictures, whether to commemorate an unexpected death—as in Mrs. Samuel Moody and Her Sons, Samuel and Thomas (ca. 1799, reworked ca. 1784, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London)—or to update styles like that of Mrs. Sheridan (previous page, center), whose initial portrayal as a shepherdess was reworked years later, when the pastoral look no longer suited her.
ACCOMPANYING PUBLICATIONS
The exhibition is further complemented by a richly illustrated catalogue authored by Ng, with a contribution by Kari Rayner, Associate Conservator of Paintings, J. Paul Getty Museum.
Along with entries for each work, the catalogue features essays on portraiture and self-fashioning in Gainsborough’s era, on materials and techniques that linked clothing and paintings, and on the roles of class and time in eighteenth-century style. The book also touches on the longstanding appeal of Gainsborough’s art, particularly its popularity a century after his death among American collectors such as the Fricks, Vanderbilts, and Huntingtons.
The 200-page exhibition catalogue is funded by Dr. Tai-Heng Cheng and published by Rizzoli Electa in association with The Frick Collection (hardcover $50; softcover $35; members 20% off in-store, 10% online).
Additionally, the exhibition inspired a new volume in the acclaimed Frick Diptych series, whose entries illuminate a single masterpiece from the permanent collection by pairing essays from a curator and a contemporary artist, musician, or other cultural luminary. This volume centers on Gainsborough’s Hon. Frances Duncombe (ca. 1776), with a contribution by fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi alongside an illuminating art historical essay by Ng.
Peter Darnell Muilman, Charles Crokatt,
and William Keable, ca. 1750
Oil on canvas
30 1/8 × 25 1/4 in. (76.5 × 64.2 cm)
Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk, and
Tate, London
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, ca. 1750
Oil on canvas
27 1/2 × 47 in. (69.8 × 119.4 cm)
© The National Gallery, London
3 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
The Gravenor Family, ca. 1754
Oil on canvas
35 1/2 × 35 1/2 in. (90.2 × 90.2 cm)
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
4 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Sarah Hodges, Later Lady Innes, ca. 1759
Oil on canvas
40 × 28 5/8 in. (101.6 × 72.7 cm)
The Frick Collection, New York
Photo: Michael Bodycomb
5 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Mary, Countess Howe, 1763–64
Oil on canvas
94 15/16 × 60 3/4 in. (243.2 × 154.3 cm)
English Heritage, Kenwood House, London
© Historic England / Bridgeman Images
6 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Lords John and Bernard Stuart, after Anthony
van Dyck, ca. 1765
Oil on canvas
92 1/2 × 57 1/2 in. (235 × 146.1 cm)
Saint Louis Art Museum
7 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Captain Augustus John Hervey, Later 3rd Earl
of Bristol, ca. 1768
Oil on canvas
91 5/16 × 60 1/16 in. (232 × 152.5 cm)
Ickworth House, Suffolk
© National Trust Images
8 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Mary, Duchess of Montagu, ca. 1768
Oil on canvas
49 1/4 × 39 1/2 in. (125.1 × 100.3 cm)
Duke of Buccleuch, Bowhill House,
Scottish Borders
Photo courtesy The Buccleuch Living
Heritage Trust
9 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Ignatius Sancho, 1768
Oil on canvas
29 × 24 1/2 in. (73.7 × 62.2 cm)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
41 EAST 70TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10021 COMMUNICATIONS@FRICK.ORG
10 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Gainsborough Dupont, ca. 1770–72
Oil on canvas
17 15/16 × 14 3/4 in. (45.5 × 37.5 cm)
Tate, London
11 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Master John Heathcote, ca. 1771–72
Oil on canvas
50 × 39 13/16 in. (127 × 101.2 cm)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
12 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Carl Friedrich Abel, ca. 1777
Oil on canvas
88 3/4 × 59 1/2 in. (225.4 × 151.1 cm)
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and
Botanical Gardens, San Marino
© Huntington Art Museum
13 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Pomeranian and Puppy, ca. 1777
Oil on canvas
32 3/4 × 44 in. (83.2 × 111.8 cm)
Tate, London
14 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
The Hon. Frances Duncombe, ca. 1776
Oil on canvas
92 1/4 × 61 1/8 in. (234.3 × 155.3 cm)
The Frick Collection, New York
Photo: Joseph Coscia Jr.
15 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Margaret Gainsborough, ca. 1778
Oil on canvas
30 3/16 × 25 1/8 in. (76.6 × 73.8 cm)
The Courtauld, London
© The Courtauld / Bridgeman Images
61 EAST 70TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10021 COMMUNICATIONS@FRICK.ORG
16 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Samuel Linley, ca. 1778
Oil on canvas
29 13/16 × 25 in. (75.8 × 63.5 cm)
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
© Dulwich Picture Gallery / Bridgeman Images
17 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
James Christie, 1778
Oil on canvas
50 1/4 × 40 1/4 in. (127.6 × 102.2 cm)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
18 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Grace Dalrymple Elliott, 1778
Oil on canvas
92 1/4 × 60 1/2 in. (234.3 × 153.7 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Photo courtesy The Metropolitan Museum
of Art / ArtResource
71 EAST 70TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10021 COMMUNICATIONS@FRICK.ORG
19 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Mrs. Samuel Moody and Her Sons, Samuel
and Thomas, ca. 1779, reworked ca. 1784
Oil on canvas
92 1/8 × 60 11/16 in. (234 × 154.2 cm)
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
© Dulwich Picture Gallery / Bridgeman Images
20 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
John Joseph Merlin, ca. 1781
Oil on canvas
30 × 25 in. (76.2 × 63.5 cm)
English Heritage, Kenwood House, London
© Historic England / Bridgeman Images
21 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Grace Dalrymple Elliott, 1782
Oil on canvas
30 1/8 × 25 in. (76.5 × 63.5 cm)
The Frick Collection, New York
Photo: Michael Bodycomb
81 EAST 70TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10021 COMMUNICATIONS@FRICK.ORG
22 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Mrs. Fitzherbert, ca. 1784
Oil on canvas
29 7/8 × 25 in. (75.9 × 63.5 cm)
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Photo courtesy the Legion of Honor
23 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Mrs. Sheridan, probably 1783, altered
between 1785 and 1787
Oil on canvas
86 1/2 × 60 1/2 in. (219.7 × 153.7 cm)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
24 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Thomas Gainsborough, ca. 1787
Oil on canvas
30 7/8 × 25 3/8 in. (77.3 × 64.5 cm)
© Royal Academy of Arts, London
Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Limited
25 Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788)
Bernard Howard, Later 12th Duke
of Norfolk, 1788
Oil on canvas
88 × 54 in. (223.5 × 137.2 cm)
His Grace, the Duke of Norfolk,
Arundel Castle, Sussex
