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.
Ko Kirk Yamahira
Acrylic and graphite on partially unwoven canvas with wood
2019
Katherine Bradford
Acrylic on canvas
2022
Eden Seifu
Acrylic on canvas
2022
Bony Ramirez
Acrylic, soft oil pastel, color pencil, wallpaper, metal chain, dried coconuts
2021
Sadie Wechsler
Archival inkjet print in madrone artist's frame
2021
Cauleen Smith
Archival pigment print
2015
Jennie C. Jones
Audio tape from the 1992 Kenny-G recording “Breathless”, under plexiglass
2008
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
Kelly Akashi
Chromogenic crystallograph in aluminum artist's frame
2021
Amie Siegel
Cibachrome print
2013
Tschabalala Self
Colored pencil, acrylic paint, gouache, charcoal, graphite on archival inkjet print
2021
Tschabalala Self
Colored pencil, acrylic paint, gouache, charcoal, graphite on archival inkjet print
2021