Frye Art Museum

Located on Seattle’s First Hill, the Frye Art Museum first opened its doors in 1952 as the legacy of Charles and Emma Frye, prominent early-twentieth century Seattle business leaders and art collectors. Since that time, works from the Frye Founding Collection of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century European paintings have continuously been on view. The Museum also hosts notable exhibitions of works by internationally renowned and emerging artists, as well as extensive public programs. Gifted in perpetuity to the people of Seattle, Charles and Emma Frye’s collection became the Founding Collection of the Frye Art Museum, which opened on February 8, 1952. After Charles Frye’s death in 1940, the executor of Frye’s will, Walser Sly Greathouse, administered the establishment of the Museum and became its first director. After Greathouse died in 1966, his widow Ida Kay directed the Museum until her retirement in 1993. In 1994 the Board appointed Richard West, scholar and former director of Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Maine; the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento; the Newport Art Museum, Rhode Island; and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. West oversaw the Frye Art Museum’s expansion and renovation, which was designed by Rick Sundberg of Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects, Seattle. After West’s retirement in 2003, Midge Bowman, a Yale-trained historian and educator, directed the Museum, establishing the museum’s archive and initiating important collection research projects. Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, former director of the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich and the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada, became the Museum’s director in 2009 following Bowman’s retirement.