The Frye Art Museum in Seattle has added four new works to its collection. The acquisition is part of a two-year partnership with the Seattle Art Fair, which awarded the institution a total of $50,000 in support of the expansion of its contemporary art holdings. “We are again grateful to the Seattle Art Fair for the opportunity to broaden and diversify the Frye’s contemporary collection with works by this extraordinary group of artists,” said museum director and CEO Joseph Rosa.

At the fair’s fifth edition, which was presented by AIG, the institution purchased works from four Pacific Northwest galleries, including a work on paper by Jeffry Mitchell (PDX CONTEMPORARY ART), a multimedia piece by Ko Kirk Yamahira (Russo Lee Gallery), a drawing by Mary Ann Peters (James Harris Gallery), and a painting by Anthony White (Greg Kucera Gallery).

Jeffry Mitchell, Snowflake Drawing #5 (Double Lotus Pod), 2018; and Mary Ann Peters, this trembling turf (the shallows), 2018. Courtesy of the Seattle Art Fair.

In 2018, the institution selected artworks by Toyin Ojih Odutola from Albuquerque’s Tamarind Institute and by Ellen Lesperance from Portland’s gallery Adams and Ollman. All of the works were chosen by the museum’s contemporary council, which was created following the announcement of the partnership.

“Representing a broad array of mediums and varied formal and conceptual concerns, the works each hold a powerfully unique presence while together emphasizing the importance of the contemporary creative production occurring in the Pacific Northwest,” Rosa said. “To support not only local artists but also the galleries of our region that sustain their careers is a privilege.”