Curatorial cocktails at the Frick

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories

Rakewell has taken up and set aside many new hobbies since the quarantine began: crotcheting, some kind of sweaty yoga and even a touch of taxidermy. But his liquid leisure has to date consisted of only wine and whisky (and plenty of it). So he is delighted to learn of an opportunity to master his mixology and guzzle a few cocktails… courtesy of the curators of the Frick Collection in New York.

This Friday, the inaugural episode of ‘Cocktails with a Curator’ will be streamed on the YouTube channel of the venerable Manhattan institution, during Happy Hour on the Upper East Side. Chief curator (and Apollo contributor) Xavier F. Salomon will be discussing Giovanni Bellini’s St Francis in the Desert remotely; the twist – your correspondent likes it with a twist – is that he has also proffered his own recipe for ‘Xavier’s Manhattan’. Viewers are invited to bring their own beverage to the virtual cocktail event and slowly quaff their way back to the quattrocento.

Your correspondent can’t help feeling that perhaps a Bellini would better correspond with, erm, a Bellini – though he is more than happy to try Xavier’s Manhattan first. And then he’ll be moving on to a Gwen John Collins, a Richard Long Island Iced Tea, and a few Simone Martinis!

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