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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
Three Putti   Hengeler, Adolf   Oil on canvas  n.d. 
Plums   Hinkson, Mary   Oil on canvas  after 1883 
Study for the Death of Mozart   Munkácsy, Mihály de   Oil on panel  1884 
Märchenerzählerin (Storyteller)   Firle, Walther   Oil on paperboard  1884-89 
Head of a Girl   Schmutzler, Leopold   Oil on cardboard  n.d. 
Pope Leo XIII   Lenbach, Franz von   Oil on canvas  1885 
Dordrecht, The Cathedral   Boudin, Eugène   Oil on panel  ca. 1885-89 
View of the Harbor, Le Havre   Boudin, Eugène   Oil on panel  ca. 1885-90 
View of Corsica   Corrodi, Hermann   Oil on canvas  ca. 1890 
Herbstwald mit Kühen (Autumn Forest with Cows)   Baer-von Mathes, Carola   Oil on linen  ca. 1890 
Landscape with House   Willroider, Ludwig   Oil on canvas  ca. 1890 
First Communion   Salinas y Teruel, Juan Pablo   Oil on canvas  ca. 1890 
Three Cows and a Calf   Barillot, Léon   Oil on linen  ca. 1890 
In a Föhn Storm   Schmid, Mathias   Oil on cardboard  1886 
Eleonora Duse   Lenbach, Franz von   Oil on canvas  1886 
Landscape with Stream   Gorter, Arnold   Oil on canvas  n.d. 
Landscape with Snow   Gorter, Arnold   Oil on canvas  n.d. 
Winter Landscape   Gorter, Arnold   Oil on canvas  n.d. 
Autumn Sun   Gorter, Arnold   Oil on canvas  n.d. 
Im Gasthaus (At the Inn)   Defregger, Franz von   Oil on canvas  1887 
Head of a Girl   Defregger, Franz von   Oil on panel  ca. 1890 
Head of a Man   Slevogt, Max   Oil on canvas  1888 
Small Girl with Pigs   Louyot, Edmond   Oil on canvas  ca. 1893 
Das Bilderbuch I (Picture Book I)   Uhde, Fritz von   Oil on canvas  1889 
Stella   Majer, Gustav   Oil on canvas  1889 


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