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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.


Feast

Dan Webb
Carved fir
2006

Fu Dogs

Jeffry Mitchell
Earthenware with luster glaze
2005

Sister Totem

Marita Dingus
Ceramic and mixed media
2023

Gingko

Gretchen Frances Bennett
Color pencil on paper
2023

The Edith Wharton you can afford

Dawn Cerny
Wood, plaster tape, textiles, found ephemera from studio of Nancy Shaver, Apoxie Sculpt, paint
2021

Covid March (after unemployment, the park, then home)

Dawn Cerny
Wood, drawings, textiles, clipboard, Apoxie Sculpt, polymer clay, paint, found ephemera from studio of Nancy Shaver
2021

Tracy + the Plastics

Wynne Greenwood
Video (color, sound)
2006/2014