The Frye Art Museum’s substantial collection of works by artists of the Pacific Northwest reflects the Museum’s transformation from a personal selection of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century—predominantly European—oil paintings to a museum dedicated to creative practice in its myriad forms. Since opening in 1952 to the present day, the Museum has remained steadfast in exhibiting and collecting artworks by contemporary artists, especially those living and practicing in the city of Seattle and surrounding region. Walser Sly Greathouse, executor of the Frye estate and founding director of the Museum, ensured Charles and Emma Frye's vision for a free, public art museum for the people of Seattle was brought to life. Beginning in 1952, Greathouse was the first of six directors who expanded the Museum’s collection, acquiring new works to enliven and contextualize the paintings bequeathed by the Fryes. Subsequent leaders sustained the Museum’s legacy within the evolving identity of the Pacific Northwest through the ongoing collection and exhibition of works by artists of the region—from Washington and Oregon up to Alaska. The Museum’s extensive holdings of Alaskan art were initially assembled by the Museum’s second director, Ida Kay Greathouse. Between 1969 and 1993, she acquired over 125 paintings and works on paper. Subsequent Frye directors Richard V. West, Midge Bowman, and Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker added 175 more works by artists associated with the northernmost state. Highlights of the Pacific Northwest holdings range from twentieth-century Alaskan landscapes by artists such as Sydney Laurence and Eustace Paul Ziegler, to evocative works by contemporary artists and artist collectives across a broad range of mediums, including Juventino Aranda, the Black Constellation, Alison Bremner, Degenerate Art Ensemble, Ellen Lesperance, Jeffry Mitchell, Buster Simpson, and Ko Kirk Yamahira, among others.
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Title | Artist | Medium | Date |
Study for 2x4 with yellow fill | Livingston, Margie | Acrylic with steel wall shelf | 2011 |
Feast | Webb, Dan | Carved fir | 2006 |
Sister Totem | Dingus, Marita | Ceramic and mixed media | 2023 |
Venus Jar 4: My Mothers | O’Leary, Hanako | Clay | 2020 |
Gingko | Bennett, Gretchen Frances | Color pencil on paper | 2023 |
Fu Dogs | Mitchell, Jeffry | Earthenware with luster glaze | 2005 |
Solid Citizen | Jackson Hutchins, Jessica | Glazed ceramic | 2008 |
Pickle Jar with Elephants, Bow and Mottled Grey Balls | Mitchell, Jeffry | Glazed earthenware | 2008 |
We are the Gentle Angry Women and We Are Singing for Our Lives | Lesperance, Ellen | Gouache and graphite on tea-stained paper | 2015 |
Frye | Tracy and the Plastics | Performance and video, sound, color | 2006/2014 |
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 |
The Edith Wharton you can afford | Cerny, Dawn | Wood, plaster tape, textiles, found ephemera from studio of Nancy Shaver, Apoxie Sculpt, paint | 2021 |
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