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.
Molly Jae Vaughan
Oil pencil on paper
2022
Kat Lyons
Oil on canvas
2021
Natalie Ball
Cotton cloth, twine, clay, leather, metal jingles, deer legs, and shoes
2018
Amoako Boafo
Oil on canvas
2021
Clarissa Tossin
Porcelain
2021
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
Jennie C. Jones
Audio tape from the 1992 Kenny-G recording “Breathless”, under plexiglass
2008
Bony Ramirez
Acrylic, soft oil pastel, color pencil, wallpaper, metal chain, dried coconuts
2021
Dawn Cerny
Wood, drawings, textiles, clipboard, Apoxie Sculpt, polymer clay, paint, found ephemera from studio of Nancy Shaver
2021
Molly Zuckerman-Hartung
Oil, collage, plastic garbage bag, camouflage pants
2008-2011
Rose Nestler
Leather, thread, batting, grommets, hooks
2018