ART COLLECTION
The Art Collection’s emphasis is on art from the Pacific Northwest,but includes examples of American art from the middle of the 19th century to the present. The focus of the collection is on works by Northwest artists and the Museum makes a concerted effort to both support and collect contemporary regional artists’ works. The collection includes works by early Northwest painters, Sydney Laurence (1865-1940) and James Everett Stuart, (1852-1941) to works by the Northwest Mystics who attracted national attention to the Pacific Northwest, including Mark Tobey (1890-1976), Morris Graves (1910-2001), Kenneth Callahan (1905-1986) and Guy Anderson (1906-1998).

The collection contains important works by well-respected Northwest artists such as Philip McCracken, Helmi Juvenon, William Ivey, Paul Horiuchi, Wesley Wehr and others. Utilizing its art collection, the museum offered the first formalized art education program to school children which, twenty-five years later, officially became part of the basis for the local school district’s art program when such programming was mandated by the state. The Museum is a member of the Washington Art Consortium, a group of seven Washington museums that jointly own a major collection of American paintings, works on paper and photography.