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Pacific Northwest Artists


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.


  FILTER RESULTS
by Artist
by Year
Bamboo No.8

Jeffrey Bishop
Letterpress and lithograph
1993

Bamboo No.9

Mare Blocker
Letterpress and linocut
1994

Mission at Cuernavaca

Harry Bonath
Watercolor on paper
ca. 1966

Gloaming

Gudrun Brask
Watercolor on paper
ca. 1963

Great Notions

Byron Bratt
Mezzotint and acrylic wash
1990

Stereoscopic Viewer

Byron Bratt
Mezzotint and acrylic wash
1995

The Changeling

Byron Bratt
Mezzotint and acrylic wash
1980

The Three Graces

Byron Bratt
Mezzotint and acrylic wash
1988

Chemically Tanned

Alison Bremner
Latex paint on deer hide with horsehair
2017

Landscape #7

Matt Browning
Tree sap on handmade wood panel
2012