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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 


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