Frye Art Museum

Founding Collection

The Founding Collection reflects the distinctive vision of museum founders Charles and Emma Frye and celebrates late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century European and American art. The children of German immigrants, the Fryes became prominent business leaders and patrons of the arts after settling in Seattle in 1888. Their collection of 232 oil paintings, almost half of which features German artists, was formed during the years around 1900. Charles and Emma Frye developed their passion for art at the Columbian Exposition, a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893. The experience had a great influence on the painterly subjects and artists the couple would collect in years to come. Over the next four decades, the Fryes acquired paintings while traveling abroad in Europe and from auctions, most notably those of American collections formed by Hugo Reisinger and Josef Stránský. The Fryes famously hung their paintings floor to ceiling, salon style, in a specially built gallery space attached to their home on First Hill. Beyond Germany, the Fryes collected works by artists from Austria, Denmark, England, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, and the United States. Highlights include works by two generations of artists from Munich—those of the Münchener Künstlergenossenschaft (Munich Artist’s Association) such as Franz von Defregger, Franz von Lenbach, Wilhelm Leibl, and Friedrich August von Kaulbach—and artists who formed the Munich Secession including Ludwig Dill, Hugo von Habermann, Otto Hierl-Deronco, Franz von Stuck, Wilhelm Trübner, Fritz von Uhde, and Heinrich von Zügel. Other notable works include paintings by Eugène Boudin, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Lillian Genth, Gabriel von Max, and Mihály de Munkácsy. The Founding Collection continues to serve as a catalyst for artistic inquiry at the Frye Art Museum in exhibitions that reframe its works and history through a lens of contemporary scholarship.

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Title	Artist	Medium	Date
The Condemned	Munkácsy, Mihály de	Oil on panel	1869-72
Dutch Woman and Child	Neuhuys, Albert	Oil on canvas	n.d.
Trüber Wintertag (Cloudy Winter Day)	Petuel, Rudolph	Oil on canvas	1913
Charles H. Frye	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	1913
Charles H. Frye	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	ca. 1913
Chief Seattle	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	ca. 1916
Emma Lamp Frye	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	1913
Emma Lamp Frye	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	ca. 1913
Head study for Portrait of Charles H. Frye	Raschen, Henry	Oil on linen	ca. 1913
Landscape with Campfire	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	ca. 1915-20
Landscape with Indian Camp	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	ca. 1900
Old Man	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	n.d.
Old Man	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	n.d.
Old Man	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	n.d.
Old Man	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	n.d.
Old Man	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	n.d.
Old Man	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	n.d.
Old Man	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	n.d.
Old Man (Head) with Locket	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	n.d.
Portrait of Charles H. Frye	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	ca. 1913
Study of Emma Lamp Frye	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	ca. 1913
The Deserted Camp	Raschen, Henry	Oil on canvas	n.d.
The Game of Catch	Ricci, Arturo	Oil on canvas	after 1880
Two Gordon Setters in a Field	Rosseau, Percival	Oil on canvas	1904
First Communion	Salinas y Teruel, Juan Pablo	Oil on canvas	ca. 1890