The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. A ...

located on the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

campus in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it was founded in February, 1927, and was the first public art museum in the state of Washington. The original building was designed by

Bebb and Gould Bebb and Gould was an American architectural partnership active in Seattle, Washington from 1914 to 1939. Partners Charles Herbert Bebb and Carl Freylinghausen Gould were jointly responsible for the construction of many buildings on the Univers ...

. It was expanded in 1997 to , at which time the 154-seat

auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria (or auditoriums) is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, community ...

was added. The addition/expansion was designed by

Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman & Associates Architects LLC (formerly Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects) is a New York City-based architectural firm founded in 1967 by architects Charles Gwathmey and Robert Siegel. The firm's work ranges from art ...

Founder

The museum was named for Horace C. Henry, the local businessman who donated money for its founding, as well as a collection of paintings he had begun collecting in the 1890s after visiting the Chicago World's Fair. Henry donated the collection he built with his late wife Susan of 178 works of art, along with funds for construction, and the Henry Art Gallery opened to the public on February 10, 1927. Some years prior, Henry had added gallery space to his own home on

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...

, and from 1917 until the foundation of the Henry Gallery, he effectively operated a wing of his home as a free museum, open to the public 10 hours a week. In contrast to Charles and Emma Frye of Seattle's

Frye Art Museum The Frye Art Museum is a modern and contemporary art museum located in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1952 to house the collection of Charles and Emma Frye and has since grown to include rotating temporary e ...

, Henry made no effort to control the future of the museum he financed; indeed, he specifically disavowed any such intention.

Exhibitions

The Henry's exhibition program is largely devoted to contemporary art and the history of photography. Recent exhibitions include Ann Hamilton: the common S E N S E (Oct 2014), Katinka Bock: A and I (2013),

Maya Lin Maya Ying Lin (born October 5, 1959) is an American designer and sculptor. In 1981, while an undergraduate at Yale University, she achieved national recognition when she won a national design competition for the planned Vietnam Veterans Memoria ...

(2006),

Lynn Hershman Leeson Lynn Hershman Leeson (née Lynn Lester Hershman; born 1941) is a multimedia American artist and filmmaker. Her work combines art with social commentary, particularly on the relationship between people and technology. Leeson is a pioneer in new med ...

(2005–06),

Doug Aitken Doug Aitken (born 1968) is an American artist. Aitken's body of work ranges from photography, print media, sculpture, and architectural interventions, to narrative films, sound, single and multi-channel video works, installations, and live perf ...

(2005), Axel Lieber (2004–05), and

James Turrell James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. Much of Turrell's career has been devoted to a still-unfinished work, ''Roden Crater'', a natural cinder cone crater located outsid ...

(2003), and group exhibitions such as ''W.O.W. - The Work of the Work'', 2004–05, which explored contemporary art's appeal to non-visual senses and the body of the viewer.

Collection

The Henry's collection includes over 28,000 objects. The collection includes holdings in photography, both historical and contemporary, due to the partial gift and purchase of the Joseph and Elaine Monsen collection. In 1982, the Henry inherited a sizable collection from the University of Washington's former Costume and Textile Study Center. The Henry also holds a

Skyspace, ', a site-specific immersive sculpture finished in 2003. Like the Seattle baseball stadium, the Skyspace has a retractable roof. The Henry has made their collections available for research and general public interest by providing in-house and online public access though the Eleanor Henry Reed Collection Study Center and the online collections database. These resources allow students and the general public to explore collections for personal or professional research. Objects in the collection can be accessed on-site, by reservation only, through the Reed Collection Study Center or academic classes, adult study groups, and researchers. Image:HAG2.JPG, Perspectival view of Henry Art Gallery Image:Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington.jpg, Rooftop entrance of the Henry Image:Henry HABS.jpg, South elevation view as designed by

, prior to additions by Gwathmey Siegel

Brink Award

The Brink Award was a biennial art award for an emerging artist from Washington, Oregon, or British Columbia worth $12,500. The award was established in 2008 and is administered by the Henry Art Gallery.

Past award winners

* Isabelle Pauwels (2009) * Andrew Dadson (2011) *

Anne Fenton Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie. Anne is sometimes used as a male name in the ...

(2013) *

Jason Hirata Jason Hirata (born 1986, Seattle, WA) is an artist who has shown internationally. He lives and works in New York. Life and education Hirata was born in 1986. He received a BFA in photography from the University of Washington in 2009. In 2015 ...

(2015) *

Demian DinéYazhi' ''Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth'' is a Bildungsroman by Hermann Hesse, first published in 1919; a prologue was added in 1960. ''Demian'' was first published under the pseudonym "Emil Sinclair", the name of the narrator of the story, ...

(2017)

References

External links

Official siteArchives of the Northwest Art Project, oral histories of artists and others important to the Northwest art scene initiated by the Henry Art Gallery
- University of Washington Digital Collections {{authority control 1927 establishments in Washington (state) Art museums established in 1927 Art museums and galleries in Washington (state) Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Museums in Seattle University museums in Washington (state) University of Washington campus