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Recent Acquisitions

The Frye Art Museum continues to strategically build its collection through purchases and gifts, both deepening existing areas of strength and diversifying holdings to reflect the Museum’s expansive curatorial program and Seattle’s globalized present. Acquisitions of the last five years demonstrate the Museum’s commitment to growing and contextualizing its distinctive historical collections of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American art while broadening its holdings of contemporary works to embrace previously underrepresented identities, perspectives, and forms of expression. To some extent, acquisitions mirror the Museum’s exhibition history, creating a material record of the institution’s engagement with local, national, and international artists and commemorating the special audience connection formed through temporary presentations. Contemporary artworks chosen for the collection often respond to or complicate the narratives around mediums and genres traditionally associated with the Frye, like painting, landscape, and portraiture.

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Title Artist Medium Date
Feast   Webb, Dan   Carved fir  2006 
Pickle Jar with Elephants, Bow and Mottled Grey Balls   Mitchell, Jeffry   Glazed earthenware  2008 
Fu Dogs   Mitchell, Jeffry   Earthenware with luster glaze  2005 
Study for 2x4 with yellow fill   Livingston, Margie   Acrylic with steel wall mount/shelf  2011 
We are the Gentle Angry Women and We Are Singing for Our Lives   Lesperance, Ellen   Gouache and graphite on tea-stained paper  2015 
Solid Citizen   Jackson Hutchins, Jessica   Glazed ceramic  2008 
Sister Totem   Dingus, Marita   Ceramic and mixed media  2023 
Venus Jar 4: My Mothers   O’Leary, Hanako   Clay  2020 
Gingko biloba   Bennett, Gretchen Frances   Color pencil on paper  2023 
The Edith Wharton you can afford   Cerny, Dawn   Wood, plaster tape, textiles, found ephemera from studio of Nancy Shaver, Apoxie Sculpt, paint   2021 
Covid March (after unemployment, the park, then home)   Cerny, Dawn   Wood, drawings, textiles, clipboard, Apoxie Sculpt, polymer clay, paint, found ephemera from studio of Nancy Shaver   2021 
Frye   Tracy and the Plastics   Performance and video, sound, color  2006/2014 
Trefoil Looking Glass   ESTAR(SER), with special acknowledgment to the Committee on Vitreous Phenomena (Justin Ginsberg and Anna Riley)   Glass, with custom made iron and wood stand  n.d. 
Baby   Ball, Natalie   Cotton cloth, twine, clay, leather, metal jingles, deer legs, and shoes   2018 
Single Cabinet   Magor, Liz   Polymerized gypsum, cans of beer  2001 
Breathless #6   Jones, Jennie C.   Audio tape from the 1992 Kenny-G recording “Breathless”, under plexiglass    2008 
Silent Clusterfuck (Pyrite –fake gold)   Jones, Jennie C.   Earbuds and acrylic    2008 
untitled   Koťátková, Eva   Mixed media collage   2011 
untitled   Koťátková, Eva   Mixed media collage   2011 
untitled   Koťátková, Eva   Mixed media collage   2011 
Becoming Mineral   Tossin, Clarissa   Porcelain   2021 
Rising Temperature Casualty (Prunus persica, home garden, Los Angeles)   Tossin, Clarissa   Silicone, black pigment, tree bark  2022 
The Unknown   Quaicoe, Otis Kwame Kye   Oil on canvas  2020 
Stylite Altarpiece   Seifu, Eden   Acrylic on canvas   2022 
Black Face with Wide Chest   Self, Tschabalala   Colored pencil, acrylic paint, gouache, charcoal, graphite on archival inkjet print  2021 


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