SAM Art Archives

Making History: Meet Tanya Uyeda, SAM’s Inaugural Senior East Asian Paintings Conservator

Lily Hansen on Aug 14 2023

This spring, Tanya Uyeda joined SAM as the museum’s inaugural Senior East Asian Paintings Conservator. A leader in conservation practice, education, and research, Tanya assumes responsibility for the care of SAM’s East Asian painting collection, focusing on conservation treatments and sourcing the necessary specialized materials and tools.

Her appointment also marked the start of regular activity in the landmark Atsuhiko and Ina Goodwin Tateuchi Conservation Center, which opened as part of the renovated and expanded Seattle Asian Art Museum in February 2020. The center is one of only a handful of museum studios nationwide dedicated to the comprehensive treatment of East Asian paintings, and the only studio of this type in the western US.

Tanya comes to SAM with over 28 years of experience in art conservation, including over 20 years as a conservator of Japanese paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Born in Eugene, Oregon, Tanya received a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies: Japanese Language and History from Oberlin College and earned a Master’s Degree in Preservation of Cultural Properties from Tokyo University of the Arts. She also trained at an elite painting conservation studio in Tokyo. She is one of only four American conservators of a similar background working in a US institution, as there are no conservation training programs for East Asian paintings outside of Asia.

Just a few months into her tenure at SAM, Marketing Content Creator Lily Hansen spoke with Tanya about her short- and long-term goals, what members can expect in her upcoming Up Close With Conservators talk this fall, how she’s adjusting to Seattle, and more.

LILY HANSEN: Welcome to SAM! After spending more than 20 years in Boston, how are you adjusting to Seattle?

TANYA UYEDA: It seems I arrived in Seattle at the best time of year—I’ve really been enjoying this spectacular summer weather! I’ve settled into a home in the Ballard neighborhood and have been getting it ready in anticipation of my family relocating from Boston later this fall. It’s been so nice to explore the Ballard Farmers Market every Sunday and recently took a weekend jaunt over to Bainbridge Island. I also have extended family in the area, and it has been lovely to be able to reconnect with many of them.

LH: How does it feel to be named SAM’s inaugural Senior East Asian Paintings Conservator?

TU: I feel very honored to be chosen for this important new position. Before arriving at SAM, I worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which houses one of the most important and comprehensive collections of Japanese art in the US. Most of my work on the Japanese painting collection supported large-scale touring exhibitions that were shown primarily in Japan.

I am looking forward to continuing this work at the Seattle Asian Art Museum and contributing to the preservation of, and scholarship on, the museum’s East Asian painting collection. I can’t wait to share my insights with members and visitors alike, and to support the care and appreciation of these important artworks throughout the entire Western Pacific region.

LH: What are a few of the goals you set for yourself in taking on this position?

TU: Since assuming my role, my immediate focus has been setting up the Tateuchi Conservation Center as a fully functioning conservation studio. The renovation of the Seattle Asian Art Museum included the creation of this beautiful new workspace, necessary infrastructure such as work tables, sinks, light tables, and fume hoods. The tatami mat flooring and low work tables are what you would see in a traditional Japanese scroll mounting studio, and is what I am accustomed to from my training.

In addition to the basic conservation equipment, East Asian paintings require highly specialized (and expensive!) materials and tools, such as handmade paper, woven textiles, decorative fittings, and various types of brushes, adhesives, pigments, and dyestuffs. Many of these necessary items are imported directly from Japan and China, and are becoming increasingly difficult to source due to the aging out of the artisans that produce them and a lack of younger craftsmen to replace them.

For example, there is a type of paper called “misu-gami” that is produced in the Yoshino region of Japan and provides the flexible inner structure of Japanese hanging scrolls. However, there is now only one papermaker producing it. I will be relying on the generous cooperation of conservation colleagues in Japan and the US, as well as suppliers and craftspeople, to support me as I work to outfit the Tateuchi Conservation Center and carry out the treatments we intend to complete.

LH: The Emerging Arts Leader Internship Program is an integral part of SAM’s mission to connect art to life. This summer, you welcomed Alexa Machnik as your first Emerging Arts Leader Intern in Conservation. What has it been like working with Alexa? Do you intend to take on more interns in the future?

TU: I was very fortunate to meet Alexa and convince her to spend the summer with me in Seattle before she begins a fellowship with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art this fall. As a Mellon Foundation Fellow at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University and a fourth-year student in the university’s MA/MS program in art history and conservation, she also has extensive working experience at institutions such as the Yale University library and Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The primary focus of Alexa’s internship has been to work alongside me in building eight new karibari, or drying boards, for the studio. These boards are an essential component of every East Asian painting conservation and mounting studio. They consist of a wooden lattice undercore and feature up to 11 layers of handmade paper pasted in specific configurations on either side to provide a sturdy and breathable, yet lightweight surface for stretch drying and flattening artworks during treatment. It is a time consuming and physically demanding task, and I am grateful to have Alexa’s assistance! Building the boards is also excellent training in the use of brushes and knives, different thicknesses of paste, and the preparation of various types of handmade paper. She is also helping me process an important series of artworks gifted to SAM at the bequest of longtime benefactor, the late Frank Bayley III, as well as designing new display apparatus for upcoming gallery rotations at the museum.

My hope is that the Tateuchi Conservation Center will serve as a training resource for future conservators of Asian art, as coursework in East Asian painting conservation is not an area of study offered in North American or European graduate conservation programs. Training in this field is still largely apprenticeship-based, taking place in private studios across Japan, China, Taiwan, and Korea. As a result of their unusual formats, Asian paintings require dexterity, specialized tools, refined aesthetic sensibilities, and linguistic, cultural, and historical knowledge. In the US, the field tends to attract students with a background or interest in paper conservation. These include so-called pre-program students (those seeking admittance to North American conservation programs) or recent graduates from these same programs. Occasionally, students with academic or practical training from Asia are considered as well.

LH: This fall, SAM will launch Up Close with Conservators, a members-only lecture series offering an in-depth look at the conservation work taking place at the museum. For the inaugural lecture, you’ll be in conversation with SAM’s Jane Lang Davis Chief Conservator Nick Dorman. What can SAM members expect to hear in your discussion with Nick?

TU: Up Close with Conservators is an exciting opportunity to highlight the individuals who make up SAM’s conservation team and to share the details of our work with the public. We chose to title the series “Up Close” because much of our work begins with a close examination of the objects. We look forward to educating members on the works of art in our care, sharing our discoveries, explaining how we assist the museum’s curators in interpreting the artistic intent of each artwork’s creator, and articulating how best to handle, store, and preserve art for future generations.

In our lecture, Nick and I will discuss the museum’s long journey to establish the Tateuchi Conservation Center at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, and what the role of this new resource will be for the understanding and preservation of the important East Asian collections in the West Coast region. I will also be giving a brief overview of the kind of work that will take place in the studio, and what conservation of East Asian paintings looks like. It will be my first opportunity to speak to SAM’s members and is sure to be a engaging conversation.

– Lily Hansen, SAM Marketing Content Creator

Photos: Alborz Kamalizad.

Inside the World of Ikat: An Interview with SAM Curator Pam McClusky

Lily Hansen on Apr 18 2023

“This exhibition comes out of my own frustration that textiles are undervalued, as an art form that we use every day, on our bodies, in our homes, everywhere.”
– Pam McClusky, SAM Oliver E. and Pamela F. Cobb Curator of African and Oceanic Art

We’re more than halfway through the limited run of Ikat: A World of Compelling Cloth at SAM. Get the inside scoop on what objects from SAM’s global collection and local loans from the collection of David and Marita Paly you’ll see on view in this textile-focused exhibition and hear how it all came together from SAM curator Pam McClusky. Watch our interview with Pam now to discover the influence of this time-honored dyeing technique and recognize the power of slow fashion in our world.

Get your tickets to see this incredible exhibition for yourself before it closes for good on Monday, May 29!

– Lily Hansen, SAM Marketing Content Creator

Photo: L. Fried.

Object of the Week: Kifwebe

Pam McClusky on Dec 16 2021

Striations animate this mask to help us see the moon as a benevolent star that connects us to the world of benign dead. In simplified terms, it is said, “to chase away, or put in flight, death.” Now’s the time for it to allure Robert Farris Thompson (1932-2021), as he cartwheels his way into the cosmos, looking for a good cosmogram, as a hero of African art history should.

I first saw Bob appear at an academic conference whose schedule said a Yale professor would give a summation. When the doors to the quiet auditorium opened, a wave of people swarmed in. A Black family took seats next to me—a grandmother and her grandson—whose excitement was contagious. Once the place was packed, Bob began walking toward the podium and yelled, “Turn the lights down so they can’t see how white I am!” Then he gave a talk like none other—filled with call and response, drumming, dancing, parables in multiple languages—and the crowd cheered, laughed, and collectively sighed. Here was someone whose love of art had put him in touch with Africa and transformed him into an oracle for recognizing the depth of its teachings.

A few years later, he came to Seattle for a press conference when the museum announced its acquisition of the Katherine White Collection, which he knew well, having curated and written African Art in Motion. He admired Katherine enormously, yet he launched into revelations about the art she collected as a tribute to her, and told me, “small people talk about people, big people talk about ideas.”

He became a constant source for guidance on exhibitions and books, such as Praise Poems and Long Steps Never Broke a Back. Whenever I need a boost, I reached for research notebooks filled with his drawings and cryptic commentary, and considered another one of his sayings, “with African art, the evidence machine of Western thinking doesn’t work.”

*Page from Robert Farris Thompson’s notebook from 1972 notes on the Katherine White Collection, SAM archives.*

SAM hosted his exhibition, Face of the Gods: Art and Altars of the Black Atlantic World. We cared for live altars, recreated a beach altar with tons of sand, placed a cosmogram on the floor, involved priests and priestesses, and got to revel in his unpacking of iconography. We also took walks in the Central District where he would find yards that impressed him and knock on doors to say, “Hi, I’m Bob, and I’d like to talk about your artistry.”

So, if you haven’t come across his name before, I hope this might nudge you to look into his writing and thinking. We’re also reviewing recordings of his appearances in Seattle, including one about his book Tango: The Art History of Love. For now, here’s a quote from an interview he did with Rolling Stone to demonstrate his way with words. Ashe, Master T.

“[The people of Africa] stand like giants in teaching us how to live. There is a moral voice imbedded in the Afro-Atlantic aesthetic that the West can’t grasp. They don’t see the monuments, just barefoot philosophy coming from village elders. But the monument is a grand reconciling art form that tries to morally reconstruct a person without humiliating him.

These are the canons of the cool: there is no crisis that cannot be weighed and solved; nothing can be achieved through hysteria or cowardice; you must wear and show off your ability to achieve social reconciliation. Step back from the nightmare. It is a call for parlance, for congress and for self-confidence.”¹

– Pam McClusky, SAM Oliver E. and Pamela F. Cobb Curator of African and Oceanic Art

1 Fred Iseman, “Robert Farris Thompson: Canons of the Cool,” Rolling Stone, November 22, 1984, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/robert-farris-thompson-canons-of-the-cool-58823.

Image: Kifwebe (Mask), late 19th century, Congolese, Luba, Wood, raffia, bark, pigment, twine, 36 1/4 x 24 x 12 in., Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company, 81.17.869.

SAM Art: SAM <3 YOU!

Seattle Art Museum on Feb 12 2015

Elizabeth, Paris, 1931, Andre Kertesz, American, born Hungary, 1894–1985, gelatin silver photograph, 9 11/16 x 7 1/2 in. (24.6 x 19.1 cm), Gift of Jerome D. Whalen, 86.232, © Estate of Andre Kertesz. Not currently on view.

Happy Valentine’s Day

from your friends at SAM

Celebrate the people you love at SAM this weekend, with great art and activities. You can even extend your celebration, and stop by the downtown Seattle Art Museum on Monday—we are open downtown on Presidents Day!

SAM Art: When is a urinal not just a urinal?

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 22 2015

Urinal, 1984, Robert Gober, American, born 1954, wood, wire, plaster and enamel paint, 30 x 20 x 20 in., Gift of the Virginia and Bagley Wright Collection, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2014.25.24, © Robert Gober. Currently on view in the modern and contemporary art galleries, third floor, Seattle Art Museum.

In 1917 Marcel Duchamp, using the fictitious name “R. Mutt,” submitted Fountain—a factory-made men’s urinal—to the first exhibition of the American Society of Independent Artists. After heated discussion, the work was rejected from the exhibition. But the event, with Duchamp’s brash challenge to basic assumptions about art, reverberated through the 20th century and beyond. At the most basic level, the artist asked what makes a work of art? Duchamp asserted that the artistic concept was more important than traditional notions of skill, craft or beauty.

As opposed to the found fixture of Fountain, Robert Gober’s Urinal is hand-made. With this action, he turns Duchamp’s object back into a sculpture, a psychologically suggestive form suggestive of a human body.

SAM Art: Celebrate MLK with SAM

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 14 2015

Martin Luther King, 2003, Ross Palmer Beecher, American, born 1957, mixed media, 21 ½ x 10 ½ x 3 ½ in., Mark Tobey Estate Fund, 2003.62, © Ross Palmer Beecher.

On Monday, we mark the 30th Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We invite you to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy with SAM.

Visit our galleries every day through Monday—installations currently on view include works that explore what it means to fight for your rights, what it means to write your own history, what it means to dream, and what it means to be an American.

SAM staff members lead special tours on the theme of social justice every day through Monday. Please join us!

SAM Art for Paris

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 8 2015

Chez Mondrian, Paris, 1926, Andre Kertesz, American, 1894-1985, gelatin silver photograph, image 9 3/4 x 7 1/2 in., Gift of Dr. R. Joseph Monsen and Dr. Elaine R. Monsen, 81.99

Our thoughts are with the people of France and the great city of Paris

#JeSuisCharlie

SAM Art: Honoring Veterans

Seattle Art Museum on Nov 11 2014

Relief fragment with warrior and horse, 668-627 B.C., Neo-Assyrian (ca. 1045-610 B.C.; modern Iraq), Nineveh, Southwest Palace, Room XXXIII, stone, overall 17 1/4 x 22 1/4 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 57.54. Currently on view in the Ancient Mediterranean and Islamic art galleries, Seattle Art Museum.

WHEREAS it has long been our custom to commemorate November 11, the anniversary of the ending of World War I, by paying tribute to the heroes of that tragic struggle and by redirecting ourselves to the cause of peace; and

WHEREAS in the intervening years the United States has been involved in… other military conflicts, which have added millions of veterans living and dead to the honor rolls of this Nation…

NOW, THEREFORE I, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, President of the United States of America, do hereby call upon all of our citizens to observe… November 11… as Veterans Day.

-Presidential proclamation on the first Veteran’s Day, 1954

The Seattle Art Museum and Asian Art Museum are closed on Veteran’s Day. The Olympic Sculpture Park is open today until 30 minutes after sunset.

SAM Art: Halloweeeeeeeeeen Edition!

Seattle Art Museum on Oct 28 2014

Seated demon figure, 14th century, Chinese, bronze with gilt, 3 1/4 x 2 x 1 7/8 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 52.45. Currently on view at the Asian Art Museum.

‘Tis the season… for ghosts and ghouls and demons!

Supernatural beings appear in artwork spanning centuries and continents, and play distinct roles in different cultures. Even within individual cultures, these creatures have different attributes that can mean different things. It has been suggested that this demon is shivering from cold, suffering that is being imposed upon him.

SAM celebrates Halloween this week with the help of Nancy Guppy and New Day Northwest (KING 5, 11 am). Nancy will be in SAM’s galleries on Thursday, October 30, in full costume inspired by Pop Departures. Join her, and SAM, for a little Halloween inspiration!

SAM Art: How did they say “selfie” in 16th-century Italy?

Seattle Art Museum on Oct 14 2014

Portrait of a Young Woman “C A C,” dated 1565, attributed to Scipione Pulzone, Italian, 1540/42–1598, oil on wood panel, 7 1/2 x 21 3/8 in., Samuel H. Kress Collection, 61.153

Portrait of a Young Woman “C A C,” dated 1565, attributed to Santi di Tito, Italian, Florentine, 1536-1603, oil on wood panel, 7 1/2 x 21 3/8 in., Samuel H. Kress Collection, 61.153

In our image-saturated age, it’s hard to imagine a time before selfies, Snapchat and Instagram. But before photography made it a simple matter to capture a life, painters strove to convey an individual’s unique character in ways that would endure through the ages. Costume, gesture, and accessories tell us about the sitter’s family and status in society, while facial expression and gaze give as much of a sense of personality and inner life as the sitter was willing to reveal.

A new installation in the European galleries (fourth floor, Seattle Art Museum) introduces you to individuals who lived in 16th-century Italy, a time when prosperous citizens considered themselves worthy of the same kinds of visual commemoration that had previously been reserved for royalty. These portraits honored important life events—a new job, a new marriage—or simply served as visual reminders of people and places long gone—just like our digital photo albums do today.

SAM Art: Poetics of paint and place

Seattle Art Museum on Oct 8 2014

The Cornish Hills, 1911, Willard Metcalf, American, 1858 – 1925, oil on canvas, 35 x 40in., Partial and promised gift from a private collection, 2005.160. On view in American Art Masterworks, American Art galleries, third floor, Seattle Art Museum, starting this Saturday, October 11.

Rather suddenly, as a mature painter at the age of fifty, the impressionist painter Willard Metcalf found a landscape subject that would engage him as never before. In the winter of 1909 Metcalf traveled to the artists’ enclave of Cornish, New Hampshire, where he discovered the beauty of the winter landscape, reduced to a few solid forms and strikingly contrasting colors. Thereafter, Metcalf made the scenery around Cornish something of a specialty year-round, his magnificent paintings earning him the title “poet laureate of the New England Hills.”

The Cornish Hills is just one of the paintings included in a new installation, American Art Masterworks, opening this Saturday in the American Art galleries of the Seattle Art Museum.

SAM Art: False embroidery, real whales

Seattle Art Museum on Sep 16 2014

Basket with Orca whale design, ca. 1910, Tlingit, spruce root, maidenhair fern stem, grass, and dyes (twining), 8 1/2 x 10 in., Gift of John H. Hauberg, 91.1.100. Currently on view in the Native American art galleries, third floor, Seattle Art Museum.

Baskets made for collectors (rather than for use) were produced in large numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Tlingit women. They often took the form of functional Tlingit berry and cooking baskets and displayed traditional false embroidery designs—but the fine weaving betrays its decorative intentions. This example, depicting orca whales, is of a rare type developed in the late 19th century.

SAM Art: Back from summer break!

Seattle Art Museum on Sep 3 2014

E Pluribus Unum, 1942, Mark Tobey, American, 1890 – 1976, opaque watercolor on paper mounted on paperboard, 19 3/4 x 27 1/4 in., Gift of Mrs. Thomas D. Stimson, 43.33, © Mark Tobey / Seattle Art Museum. Now on view in Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: The Mythic and the Mystical, fourth floor, Seattle Art Museum.

This week, we are embracing the end of summer with the coming of Labor Day, the return of NFL football, and the end of Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: The Mythic and the Mystical.

Our Super Bowl champion Seahawks return to The CLink in their season opener on Thursday. Whether you’re cheering from the stands or from your living room, stop by the Seattle Art Museum before the game to see Modernism before it closes. The stunning collection of Northwest masters is only on view through Sunday, September 7.

SAM Art: Lailat al’Miraj

Seattle Art Museum on May 30 2014

Muhammad’s Ascent to Heaven (Miraj), 16th century, Persian (modern Iran), Safavid period (1501-1722), opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 9 3/16 x 5 3/8 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 47.96. Not currently on view, but accessible online (link below).

A prophet enters an ancient holy place, where he is met by angels. They present him with a gift, a horse with wings who immediately flies the man to a faraway place. Here, the man and winged horse leap into the air, and ascend to heaven itself. The prophet speaks with God. When they come back down to earth, the man dismounts the horse armed with one cornerstone of a faith. Lailat al’Miraj, celebrated this week by Muslims around the world, commemorates this journey, and the prophet Muhammad’s return to earth with the knowledge that God wants Muslims to pray five times daily (Salat).

The story behind the holiday provided inspiration to artists in earlier eras, who often illustrated it as a frontispiece to volumes of the Khamseh, five epics by the Persian poet Nizami. While figures are forbidden from religious settings, illustrating this journey within books of secular sagas proved popular for centuries across the Islamic world.

SAM Art: Consider the figure

Seattle Art Museum on May 7 2014

Male standing figure, 20th century, Tanzanian, Nyamwezi/Sukuma culture, wood, natural pigments, cloth, height: 26 in., Gift of Dr. Oliver E. and Pamela F. Cobb, in honor of Mark Groudine, 2012.28.21, Photo: Elizabeth Mann. On view beginning 24 May, African art galleries, Seattle Art Museum.

If only we could hear the songs that once surrounded this figure! Distinctively long limbed sculptures like this were never seen in quiet spaces, but in the middle of stirring tornados of dance and song. This figure may originally have been dressed, but is now able to show off a lean angular stance that is near, but not exactly, symmetrical.

This figure, as well as other recent acquisitions of African art, goes on view in a new installation starting on May 24.

SAM Art: An old new thing

Seattle Art Museum on Apr 29 2014

Jingdezhen ware saucer, Chinese, Ming dynasty (reign of the Wan Li emperor, 1573-1619), porcelain with decoration in underglaze-blue, overglaze-enamels, height 1 in., diameter 5 7/16 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 51.90. On view beginning 30 April, Chinese art galleries, Asian Art Museum.

For the first time in a decade, these three figures are catching a glimpse of Seattle.

This saucer, last displayed in the early 2000s, shows three men in a garden, their idyllic setting framed by a pine tree, a mountain, and a stream. This newly on view saucer is, in fact, quite old: it was made during the Ming dynasty, in the reign of the Wan Li emperor (1573-1619).

There is always something new (or old) to discover at the Asian Art Museum. This week, look for recently installed ceramics and textiles in the Chinese art galleries.

SAM Art: Quick! Before it’s too late!

Seattle Art Museum on Apr 10 2014

A Fuller view of China, Japan and Korea, the museum’s celebration of our Asian art collection closes this weekend. See the Hell of Shrieking Sounds, Deer Scroll, Crows Screen, and other favorites before they disappear from our galleries. Before they go, make sure you see the stunning Hell of Shrieking Sounds scroll, which relates a Buddhist sutra on the different representations of hell. The inscription on the SAM scroll reads, in part:

“…there is a place called the Shrieking Sound Hell. The inmates of this place are those who in the past, while human beings, …[failed] to conduct themselves properly and having no kindness in their hearts, they beat and tortured beasts.”

(Translation by Mr. K. Tomita for the Seattle Art Museum)

Segment of the Hell Scroll: Hell of Shrieking Sounds, ca. 1200, Japanese, Heian period (794 – 1185), handscroll; ink and color on paper, 10 3/8 x 25 3/4 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 48.172. On view until Sunday, 13 April, at the Asian Art Museum.

SAM Art: Flowers by an expert

Seattle Art Museum on Apr 2 2014

Victoria Dubourg was trained as a portrait painter and met her future husband, the celebrated portraitist and still-life painter Henri Fantin-Latour, while both were copying paintings at the Louvre. Like her husband—and many women artists before her—she specialized in flower still lifes. This exquisite study of crisp paperwhites against a plain brown ground shows both formal restraint and compositional precision.

In the new installation, France: Inside and Out, landscapes, domestic interiors, and decorative arts invite us to think about the different worlds of men and women in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This painting by Dubourg represents the beginning of broader opportunities for women that were to come.

Narcissus, late 19th-early 20th century, Victoria Dubourg Fantin-Latour (French, 1840–1926), oil on canvas, 11 x 12 3/8 in., Gift of the Seattle Garden Club, 59.123. Currently on view in France: Inside and Out, fourth floor, Seattle Art Museum.

SAM Art: Visions of Cathay

Seattle Art Museum on Mar 25 2014

As global trade increased in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Europeans became enthralled with visions of Cathay, as China was popularly known. Chinoiserie, the ornamentation featured on this tapestry, is an enchanting decorative motif depicting imaginary and whimsical interpretations of life in Asia. An eighteenth-century European concept, chinoiseries typically present exotic figures clothed in flowing robes and elaborate headdresses, and situated in fantastical landscape settings. Whether these figures represent people of China, India, the Middle East, or Japan is often difficult to determine; they are a mélange of peoples referring not to geographical and cultural boundaries so much as to a general concept of Asia.

Altar of the Three Buddhas (detail), commissioned in 1717, Judocus de Vos (Flemish, Brussels, 1661-1734), wool, silk, metallic threads, 105 1/2 x 85 1/16 in., Gift of Guendolen Carkeek Plestcheeff Endowment for the Decorative Arts, Anonymous, General Acquisition Fund, Mildred King Dunn, Richard and Betty Hedreen, Decorative Arts Acquisition Fund, Margaret Perthou-Taylor, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Art Acquisition Endowment Fund, Ann Bergman and Michael Rorick, Mr. and Mrs. David E. Maryatt, 2002.38.1. Now on view in the European art galleries, fourth floor, Seattle Art Museum.

SAM Art: Lecture tonight

Seattle Art Museum on Mar 19 2014

Bronze abides forever. That idea changed the course of Frederic Remington’s career, and shaped the work of Alexander Phimister Proctor.

Frederic Remington was in his day and remains now the most famous painter and illustrator of the western cowboy. His early adventures in the far west introduced him to the Mexican vaqueros, admiring their derring-do as they fought to tame wild horses, the bronchos, and had done for generations. The Broncho Buster was displayed for years in the window of Tiffany & Co. in New York, where Gilded Age admirers eagerly ordered casts of Remington’s masterly vaquero.

A westerner by birth, Alexander Phimister Proctor earned an international reputation as one of the most accomplished sculptors of his generation. Animals became a specialty: Heroic horse and rider monuments by Proctor can be found from Portland, OR to New York, NY.

Buckaroo and other works by Alexander Phimister Proctor are currently on view in the American art galleries at SAM. Also on view (as a Super Bowl loan from the Denver Art Museum) is The Broncho Buster by Frederic Remington. Learn about both works in today’s members art history lecture.

Members Art History Lecture Series:
Curator’s Choice with Patricia Junker
Buckaroos in Bronze
March 19, 2014
7–8:30 pm
Plestcheeff Auditorium, Seattle Art Museum

Buckaroo, modeled 1914, cast initially 1915, Alexander Phimister Proctor (American, 1862-1950), bronze, Phimister and Sally Church.
The Broncho Buster, modeled 1895, cast before May 1902, Frederic Remington (American, 1861-1909), bronze, Roman Bronze Works, cast number 12, Denver Art Museum; The Roath Collection, 2013.91.
Currently on view in the American art galleries, third floor, Seattle Art Museum.

SAM Art: Glass is back!

Seattle Art Museum on Mar 7 2014

Glass Art at SAM

The Northwest is known the world over for its association with the studio glass movement. With the Pilchuck Glass School and the studios of such luminaries as Preston Singletary, Ginny Ruffner, and Dale Chihuly, western Washington is a hotbed for glass art. See great examples of work by artists associated with Pilchuck in a new installation at the Seattle Art Museum, opening on March 8.

Cadmium Yellow Venetian #84, 1989, Dale Chihuly (American, born 1941), blown glass, 28 x 19 x 12 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection and gift of the Estate of Mark Tobey, by exchange, 90.28, © Dale Chihuly. On view in the modern and contemporary art galleries, third floor, Seattle Art Museum.

SAM Art: Enter the Horse

Seattle Art Museum on Feb 4 2014

Happy Lunar New Year, and best wishes for the Year of the Horse, from all of us at SAM!

Shadow puppet of a horse, 20th century, Chinese, donkey skin and paint, height 18 in., Gift of Wellwood E. Beall, 48.85.10. Not currently on view, but viewable online.

SAM Art: Rare and beautiful, and new to SAM

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 28 2014

Porcelain, such as this centerpiece, embodied the essence of taste for Europeans of the mid-eighteenth century. At that time, porcelain was costly and a European formula had only recently been attained through scientific and technological struggle. Using the recently devised formula, the white translucent ceramic could be molded or cast in wonderful, light, airy, sculptural forms—such as this basket-shaped bowl supported by a swirl of foliage and cavorting, fanciful putti.

Only two other examples of this form are known; both are in England. Previously unrecorded, this rarest, most beautiful piece of Bow porcelain was recently acquired by SAM. It will be installed in the Porcelain Room this spring.

Centerpiece, 1750, Bow Porcelain Manufactory, London, England, soft-paste porcelain, 7 × 9 ½ in., Kenneth and Priscilla Klepser Fund, 2013.15. On view in spring 2014, Seattle Art Museum, fourth floor, Porcelain Room.

SAM Art: More than a mere rabbit

Seattle Art Museum on Jan 24 2014

Masks have work to do, coming alive to interact with people in forceful ways. They can sing songs, ease pain, encourage laughter, and honor elders. A new installation in the African galleries brings together masks that align human desires with animal characters. Including several recent acquisition, these masks align human desires with animal characters. Birds, antelopes, bush cows, a hyena and a rabbit are ready to greet you on your next visit to the museum.

Rabbit mask, 20th century, Bwa/Bobo culture, Burkina Faso, wood, 18 in. height, Gift of Dr. Oliver E. and Pamela F. Cobb, 2012.29.11. Currently on view in the African art galleries, fourth floor, Seattle Art Museum.

SAM Art: The DNA of Japanese Design

Seattle Art Museum on Dec 17 2013

Plants and animals of exceeding beauty and technical intricacy appear throughout Japanese design. The natural world is deeply rooted in the DNA of Japanese design, and is transmitted down through generations. Over the past few centuries, artists have begun reimagining traditional subjects in modern forms.

Nature and Pattern in Japanese Design, a new installation of Japanese art, celebrates the motifs of the natural world in folding screens, fan paintings, hanging scrolls, ceramics and lacquerware from SAM’s collection. On view at the Seattle Art Museum starting December 21.

Asagao no tane (Vine with Morningglory Seed Pods), 19th century, Shibata Zeshin (Japanese, 1807 – 1891), lacquer and color on paper, 6 13/16 x 19 3/8 in., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 61.80.1. On view in Nature and Pattern in Japanese Design, Asian art galleries (new!), third floor, SAM Downtown, opening Saturday, 21 December.

SAM Art: Going for Gold is shimmering away

Seattle Art Museum on Dec 3 2013

Gold has been a shimmering presence in art across cultures and time. When the first metals were unearthed by humans around 5000 b.c., gold was valued for its rarity and lustrous color. Today, gold is prized as both investment and adornment, with fifty percent of the world’s consumption of this rare substance being made into jewelry. The rarest of all metals, gold has unique properties. It is chemically inert so it remains stable and does not oxidize or degrade, even if buried in a tomb or sunken in a shipwreck. Gold is also dense—a cubic foot weighs half a ton—but is so malleable that it can be stretched into threads to be woven into textiles or hammered into thin sheets to be applied as gilding.

The dazzling art on view in Going for Gold offers a rare opportunity to appreciate gold in all its beguiling aspects. This exhibition closes on Sunday, 8 December.

Portable shrine: Bodhisattva Kokuzo, 19th century, Japanese (Edo period, 1603-1868), wood with gold and black lacquer, polychrome, and metal fittings, Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, 34.183. On view in Going for Gold, third floor, SAM downtown, through Sunday, 8 December.

SAM Art: A new exhibition, a new type of innovation

Seattle Art Museum on Nov 12 2013

Canadian Haida artist Robert Davidson is on a lifelong quest for innovation, which he sees as a continuation of the spirit of originality present in the work of generations of Haida artists.

In 1977, the efforts of Davidson and other artists in elevating the status and quality of silkscreen prints as an artistic, rather than touristic, medium resulted in the formation of the Northwest Coast Indian Artists Guild. Experimenting with larger scale and bold graphics, Davidson was inspired to new originality. In Reflections, the black expanse serves to heighten the precision of line, texture and color.

Reflections is included in the new exhibition Robert Davidson: Abstract Impulse, opening this Saturday, 16 November.

Reflections, 1977, Robert Davidson (Canadian, Haida, born 1946), ink on paper, 16 15/16 x 7 3/4 in., Seattle Art Museum, gift of Marshall and Helen Hatch, 2013.19.2, © Robert Davidson. On view starting Saturday, 16 November, in Robert Davidson: Abstract Impulse, third floor, SAM downtown.

SAM Art: Last chance to see an heroic guardian

Seattle Art Museum on Nov 6 2013

A heroic guardian, this figure was strategically placed precisely at the water line of a decorated canoe’s prow in the Solomon Islands. Dipping into the water as the large canoe navigated the seas, it kept watch for hidden reefs and enemies. Shell inlay swirls over the face in a pattern like those found on the painted faces of warriors. Beneath the chin of this figure is a head that is being clutched—although whether the warrior is protecting it or presenting it as a fallen enemy is unknown.

Oceanic art is on view at the Seattle Art Museum through Sunday, December 8.

Canoe prow figure (Nguzu Nguzu), 19th century, Solomon Islands, Melanesian, wood, nautilus shell, 10 5/8 x 7 7/8 x 5 in., Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company, 81.17.1443.

SAM Art: More than just beauty

Seattle Art Museum on Oct 22 2013

“It is not a reportage but a reconstruction….”
-Fabrice Monteiro, on his Signares series

How much force does a camera hold? Africa is a continent known for photo “ops”–as seen in post cards, historic portraits and journalism for 200 years. Looking back, this opportunism has also created a backlog of stereotypes and misunderstandings. Contemporary African artists are now shifting the use of this medium. Belgian-Beninese artist Fabrice Monteiro works with Senegalese women to create his images evoking “Signares,” the legendary women who matched beauty with business acumen, and played a surprising role in the Atlantic slave trade. His photographs capture his models in the guise of these elegant and charming women of the past.

Join curator Pam McClusky for “Take Me: Photography by and about Africans,” the first installment of this year’s Members Lecture Series: Curator’s Choice.

October 23, 2013
7–8:30 pm
Plestcheeff Auditorium, first floor, SAM downtown

Signare #1, île de Gorée, 2011, Fabrice Monteiro (Beninese-Belgian, works in Senegal, born 1972), archival digital print, 47 ¼ x 31 ½ in., Gift of the African Art Council and African Art Acquisition Fund, 2013.14, © Fabrice Monteiro. Not currently on view.

SAM Art: An incredible collection, one more time

Seattle Art Museum on Oct 15 2013

One of the great American collections of Minimal and Conceptual art was built by New Yorkers Dorothy and Herbert Vogel. What makes their story so inspiring is that they were able to accomplish this on their modest salaries—Dorothy a librarian and Herbert a postal service employee. The couple had no formal training in art or art history but found themselves drawn to art, frequenting galleries and befriending artists over four decades. They followed Minimal art with particular interest.

In addition to giving more than 1000 works of art to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Vogels distributed fifty works from their collection to one museum in each of the fifty states of the United States. The Seattle Art Museum is honored to be the recipient in the State of Washington.

The Vogel collection remains on view at the Seattle Art Museum until Sunday, 27 October.