Henry art gallery

Variant names

Dates:

Active 1903

Active 1991

Nationality: Americans,

Language: English,

Biographical notes:

The Henry Art Gallery was founded in 1927, as the first public art museum in the state of Washington and the art museum of the University of Washington. The Henry Art Gallery is a nationally-recognized center for the exploration of visual culture and is the Pacific Northwest's premier modern and contemporary art museum. The museum's exhibitions bring important works of art to Seattle from throughout the world and bring into public view works of art from the Northwest. These exhibitions and their related programs invite dialogue about contemporary culture, politics, aesthetics and the traditions of visual art and design of the last two centuries. Exhibitions at the Henry frequently present recent or newly commissioned work of visually and conceptually challenging artists such as Ann Hamilton (1992), Gary Hill (1994), Kara Walker (1998), Roni Horn (1998), Leone & Macdonald (1999), Josiah McElheny (1998), Jennifer Steinkamp (1999), Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle (2000) and Tony Oursler (2000). The museum also hosts nationally and internationally touring exhibitions such as Deep Storage, The Arsenal of Memory (1998), Thinking Print (1998), Inside Out: New Chinese Art (1999-2000) and Andy Warhol: Drawings, 1942-1987 (July 20 - October 8, 2000).

The museum's major renovation and expansion, completed in April 1997, quadrupled the museum's size - from 10,000 square feet to over 40,000 square feet. Increased size allowed for the addition of a 154-seat auditorium, a multi-media gallery, café, bookstore and sculpture court along with improved facilities for art handling and storage and collections research. An architectural collage of glass, textured stainless steel and cast stone, designed by Charles Gwathmey, compliments the original red brick collegiate-Gothic structure designed by Carl Gould in the 1920s.

From the guide to the Henry Art Gallery records, 1917-2004, (University of Washington Libraries Special Collections)