Frye Art Museum

The Frye Art Museum is in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle. It emphasizes painting and sculpture from the 19th century to the present. Its holdings originate in the private collection of Charles and Emma Frye. Charles, owner of a local meatpacking plant, set aside money in his will for a museum to house the Fryes' collection of over 230 paintings. The museum opened to the public in 1952, and was Seattle's first free art museum. The Fryes' collection consisted entirely of representational works, with a tendency toward "the dark, the dramatic, and the psychological" rather than "the genteel." The museum's permanent collection reflects Charles Frye's relatively conservative artistic tastes, and the museum continued to be dedicated exclusively to representational art, both in its acquisitions and its exhibits. However, exhibits in recent years have been far more venturesome.