By 1890, THE STILL YOUNG CITY of Seattle was a bustling municipality where smart entrepreneurs could make a lot of money and rise to the top of the social scale. Among these go-getters were Charles Frye and Horace C. Henry, both of whom developed an interest in the arts and were responsible for establishing two of the region's leading art institutions: the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington and the Frye Art Museum on First Hill.
Until now, their collections have resided in the separate establishments and little effort has been made to view them jointly as a phenomenon of both time and place. The current exhibition at the Frye, "Dreaming the Emerald City: The Collections of Charles and Emma Frye and Horace C. Henry," allows us to compare the tastes of these art lovers and tap the cultural climate of Seattle in the Gilded Age.
It's a handsomely mounted exhibit. The walls of the introductory galleries are painted silver. And here are displayed portraits of the collector/donors and photographs, architectural drawings and models that provide a historical context in which to consider the two museums.
The largest three galleries are painted gold to blend with the elaborate gilt frames around the paintings and draw visitors' attention to the artworks, which are hung with plenty of space surrounding them. Although this allows the viewer to concentrate on each painting individually, it also allows easy comparison, and this is the real fascination of the exhibition.
Two collections assembled by people who loved art but who weren't highly educated about art. They collected pieces they liked. Unlike many of the collectors in other parts of the country during this period when there were great concentrations of wealth in the United States, they had no connoisseurs guiding their purchases. They first bought at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and if they liked an artist, they'd be interested in what that artist liked.
Their tastes ran to living artists who were doing figurative and traditional subject matter. They had little or no interest in the avant-garde. Abstraction was not to their liking. Think of it. They were collecting during the period when some of the greatest artists since the Renaissance were working: Cezanne, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso. But taste is taste, and they weren't interested in that sort of work. The cutting edge had no appeal. Bourgeois art did.
They looked backward rather than forward, collecting major works by artists who today are generally considered to be minor figures. They collected as well the occasional minor work by a major artist.
The Fryes, whose ancestry was German, did go on buying sprees in Europe, and their collection is especially rich in the German and Austrian realists of the time. Henry concentrated more on American landscapes of the period. The great age of the American landscape came before Henry started collecting, so he has nothing by Frederick Church or other highly regarded luminists; but he did accumulate the work of some of their followers. A number of the paintings that these collectors bought were in the style of works done not just a few years, but centuries, earlier. If you know your art history, part of the fun of the exhibit is picking out the works that hearken back to earlier masters.
Robin Held, Frye chief curator and director of exhibitions and collections, has done a skilful job of positioning the paintings. The Fryes tended to like large canvases. Henry liked smaller ones. There are wonderful paired examples throughout the exhibition of paintings of similar subjects but different sizes. The Fryes selected paintings in dark colors, somber tones. Henry found more appeal in light tones, in pastels. Some artists were in both collections. The exhibit is hung so the visitor can appreciate the similarities and connections between the two.
This is an exhibit that calls out for armchair social analysis. The Fryes and Mr. Henry were speculators, people who were willing to take risks. They left the comforts of family, friends and known lands to venture west. They established businesses and brought to them the vigor and shrewdness required to be successful entrepreneurs. Why then did they both choose such "safe" art?
Perhaps it was just a matter of personal taste. It might also have been a response to being on the edge of the continent. Here where so many risks were taken in other aspects of life, a return to the most traditional of arts might have been comforting. Or more likely, among the monied class of late-19th-century Seattle, the display of a sensuous Rousseau jungle would have been just too shocking - to say nothing of the response that might have been engendered by sybaritic Matisse nudes in all their voluptuousness. In a time when transportation was slower and communications were more limited, the romanticized images they did collect were probably just right for this cultural outpost so many days and miles away from the art centers of the world.
This is a show whose importance extends beyond the paintings on display. The Fryes and Henry provided a legacy for Seattle. From their collections and their institutions have come what are today innovative and avant-garde museums. They'd be surprised and pleased, we hope, to see how their museums have matured with the city.
'DREAMING THE EMERALD CITY: THE COLLECTIONS OF CHARLES AND EMMA FRYE AND HORACE C. HENRY'
Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave.
Through April 6, 2008Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursdays until 8 p.m., Sunday noon-5 p.m.
622-9250
Free parking and free admission
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