Lecture: Countercurrents in the Seattle Art World of 1900-1930 January 31, 2008

When Charles and Emma Frye and Horace C. Henry were forming their collections, the art world of Seattle was small and tentative. While the Fryes and Henry collected an established and unequivocally esteemed form of art--easel paintings in oil--the art world around them included new, adventuresome, and radical components. This lecture explores some of these countercurrents: Seattle collectors with goals very different from theirs; artworks sharing little or nothing with oil paintings; and artists whose practices and lifestyles seemed to defy the values that the Frye and Henry collections embodied.