Frye Art Museum history

Charles and Emma Frye arrived in Seattle in 1888 from Iowa.

Charles was wildly successful, establishing the Frye-Bruhn Meatpacking Company with his brother and a friend, to capitalize on demand from the 1890's Klondike Gold Rush.

In 1891, he and a brother, Frank Frye, and a friend, Charles Bruhn, incorporated the Frye-Bruhn Meat Packing Company.

They bought their first painting at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.

In 1909 the couple lent a French painting to Seattle’s Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (a World’s Fair celebrating the development of the Pacific Northwest), which indicates that they were probably well-known as collectors by this time.

There's two impressive paintings of Emma and Charles Frye by Henry Raschen (1913). You can also find two smaller portraits of them elsewhere in the gallery.

Landscape with Campfire (1915-20) is by early American painter Henry Raschen, famous for his California landscapes and depction of Native Americans.

1934), children of German emigrants who made a fortune in the meat-packing business in Seattle.

Located in Seattle’s First Hill neighborhood since 1952, the Frye is the city’s only free art museum.

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.

Czech-born Richard West, the Frye’s first professional director, succeeded Greathouse, in January 1995.

The "old girl on Pill Hill" (at 704 Terry Avenue) is now "a chic young heiress whom everyone will want to date" (Art Guide Northwest, 1998).

Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2002, the museum boasts an award-winning makeover, new leadership, and an endowment that makes it the envy of its peers.

In October, 2016, Joseph Rosa assumed the title of Director and CEO, after serving most recently as Director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art.