Northwest Art Collection
Preview up to 100 items from this collection below. Prints, drawings and paintings by artists Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan, Helmi Juvonen, Robert Cranston Lee and others celebrate the Northwest. Many pieces hail from the 1934 Public Works of Art Project.
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White Pass and Yukon Railroad at White Pass, ca. 1899
During the Klondike Gold Rush, the White Pass was one of the routes used by prospectors to travel from Skagway to the Yukon gold fields. In April 1898 the White Pass and Yukon Railroad Company was formed in an effort to establish an easier way through the pass. Construction on the railroad began the following month. Thousands of workers worked around the clock in treacherous conditions to complete the project. The railroad track was completed at White Pass on February 20, 1899 and reached Lake Bennett on July 6, 1899. The final spike on the railroad was placed on July 29, 1900 in Carcross, B.C.
Identifier: spl_ap_00040
Date: 1899?
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Reference room
Stuart Morris was born in West Virginia in 1882 (?) and studied art in Columbus, Ohio and Philadelphia. He came to Seattle and became art editor for the Seattle P.I. where he was on the staff for nearly 20 years. When he retired in 1928, he was working on the editorial staff of the Times. He is famous for two sketches. One was of the ex-president Theodore Roosevelt which appeared in the paper the day after the president's death in 1919. The other famous sketch was of an old Catholic church on Denny Hill. Both images were requested by people from all over the country for many years.
Identifier: spl_art_M831Re
Date: 1918?
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Sawdust burner
Thomas Handforth was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1897. He was an etcher, author and painter. He studied under Mahonri Mackintosh Young and at the University of Washington. He is the author of a Caldecott medal winning children’s book called "Mei Li" about a young girl in China, set during Chinese New Year. The book is full of illustrations of China where Handforth lived and visited.
Identifier: spl_art_H192Sa
Date: n.d.
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Illustrations for lecture, Feb 26 1948 (1 of 7)
Mark Tobey was born in Centerville, WI in 1890. Beginning his career as an illustrator, Mark Tobey was a deeply religious man, converting to the universalist Baha'i faith in 1918, which would in some way influence all of his works. After extensive traveling, including a period of time at a Zen monastery in Japan, Tobey taught art and philosophy at Dartington Hall in England until 1937. He then developed his "white writing" technique, painting white cursive writing on dark canvas, a technique which he (and many other Northwest artists) would use extensively until his death. He was one of the four painters LIFE magazine described as "Northwest Mystics". The others were Guy Anderson, Morris Graves and Kenneth Callahan. He died in 1976 in Basel, Switzerland.
Identifier: spl_art_T552il1
Date: 1948
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Launching Meares' new schooner
Parker McAllister, born in 1903 in Massachusetts, was a Seattle Times artist from 1924 to 1965. McAllister started his career as an illustrator at 14 for a Spokane publication; he joined the art staff at the Seattle Times in 1920. His first Sunday magazine cover was a poster-type illustration celebrating the University of Washington crew races in spring 1924. During McAllister's career, he created illustrations depicting “local color” events and situations now routinely handled by photographers. As the technology improved, he expanded his repertoire - he illustrated articles, drew covers for special sections and the weekly Seattle Sunday Times Magazine, and drew diagrams, comics, cartoons, and portraits for the Times’ editorial page. In 1956, an exhibition of his watercolor and oil paintings of Pacific Northwest scenes and historical incidents - including some paintings from the “Discovery of the Pacific Northwest” series - were exhibited at the Washington State Historical Society Museum in Tacoma. He was also a member of the Puget Sound Group of Men Painters. McAllister retired from the Seattle Times in 1965; he passed away in Arizona in 1970.
Identifier: spl_art_291985_15.147
Date: 1955
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Woman's mask with labret
Helmi Juvonen was born in Butte, Montana on January 17, 1903. She worked in many media including printmaking, painting and paper-craft. She attended Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle where she met artist Mark Tobey with whom she was famously obsessed. Although she was diagnosed as a manic-depressive in 1930, she gained wide appreciation in the Northwest for her linocut prints depicting Northwest Indian people and tribal ceremonies. She worked with a number of artists on the Public Works of Art Project including Fay Chong and Morris Graves. Over the years, her mental health deteriorated and in 1960 she was declared a ward of the state and was committed to Oakhurst Convalescent Center. She was much beloved and had many friends and benefactors (including Wes Wehr) and was able to have exhibitions despite the confinement. She died in 1985.
Identifier: spl_art_J989Wo
Date: 1958?
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