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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
Landscape with Oxen   Willroider, Ludwig   Oil on canvas  ca. 1880 
Cattle on a Path   Wimmer, Gustav   Oil on canvas  n.d. 
Susanna and the Elders   Winterhalter, Franz Xaver   Oil on canvas  1866 
Harbor, Tripoli   Ziem, Felix   Oil on canvas  1890s 
The Bucentaur Leaving the Palace of the Doges, Venice   Ziem, Felix   Oil on canvas  1890s 
Herd of Sheep and Cattle at a Well in a Wooded Narrow Pass, Brixlegg   Zügel, Heinrich von   Oil on canvas  ca. 1880 
Old Man Asleep with Sheep   Zügel, Heinrich von   Oil on canvas  1870s 
Oxen - Two Cows   Zügel, Heinrich von   Oil on canvas  1900 
Red Dappled Oxen in Two Positions, Heckbach   Zügel, Heinrich von   Oil on canvas  1874 
Schafherde mit Hirte (Shepherd with Flock)   Zügel, Heinrich von   Oil on canvas  1920 
Sheep   Zügel, Heinrich von   Oil on canvas  n.d. 
Three Young Cows with their Drover in the High Meadow Grass, Worth   Zügel, Heinrich von   Oil on canvas  1912 
Two Cattle in a Stream   Zügel, Heinrich von   Oil on canvas  1906 
At the Beach   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Pigment and varnish on pressboard  ca. 1904-05 
Boy with a Hat   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Pigment and varnish on paperboard  n.d. 
Boy with a Red Cap   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Pigment and oil on paper  ca. 1903-04 
Child with a Brown Hat   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Pigment and varnish on pressboard  ca. 1905 
Child with a Brown Tam O'Shanter   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Dry pigment and varnish on paperboard  ca. 1905 
Children by the Sea   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Pigment and varnish on pressboard  n.d. 
Children with a Ball   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Pigment and varnish on pressboard  ca. 1904 
Children with a Bird's Nest   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Dry pigment and varnish on paperboard  n.d. 
Children with a Bowl   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Dry pigment and varnish on paperboard  ca. 1912 
Die Kleine Tirolerin (The Little Tyrolean)   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Pigment and varnish on pressboard  n.d. 
Girl by a Brook   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Dry pigment and varnish on paperboard  1920 
Girls Dancing   Zumbusch, Ludwig von   Dry pigment and medium on cardboard  ca. 1910-12 


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