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Recent Acquisitions


The Frye Art Museum continues to strategically build its collection through purchases and gifts, both deepening existing areas of strength and diversifying holdings to reflect the Museum’s expansive curatorial program and Seattle’s globalized present.

Acquisitions of the last five years demonstrate the Museum’s commitment to growing and contextualizing its distinctive historical collections of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American art while broadening its holdings of contemporary works to embrace previously underrepresented identities, perspectives, and forms of expression. To some extent, acquisitions mirror the Museum’s exhibition history, creating a material record of the institution’s engagement with local, national, and international artists and commemorating the special audience connection formed through temporary presentations. Contemporary artworks chosen for the collection often respond to or complicate the narratives around mediums and genres traditionally associated with the Frye, like painting, landscape, and portraiture.


Black Face with Wide Chest

Tschabalala Self
Colored pencil, acrylic paint, gouache, charcoal, graphite on archival inkjet print
2021

Black Face Red Bone with Black Bob

Tschabalala Self
Colored pencil, acrylic paint, gouache, charcoal, graphite on archival inkjet print
2021

Ground of Ground

Harry Gould Harvey IV
Black walnut from the Delano Sawmill, white oak from Prudence Island, MDF, colored pencil, charcoal, gouache, and pigments of goldenrod, Aronia Viking chokecherry, and rose petals
2022

Disaster Kitchen

Molly Zuckerman-Hartung
Oil, collage, plastic garbage bag, camouflage pants
2008-2011

Untitled (Badlands)

Juventino Aranda
Oil on wool Pendleton blanket
2018

Untitled

Ko Kirk Yamahira
Acrylic and graphite on partially unwoven canvas with wood
2019

Snowflake Drawing #5 (Double Lotus Pod)

Jeffry Mitchell
Graphite, ink, carbon transfer, and watercolor on paper
2018