Frye Salon + Dawn Cerny

Frye Salon features over one hundred paintings from the Frye’s collection hung floor to ceiling—a presentation referred to as “salon style.” The installation evokes the dramatic viewing experience enjoyed by visitors to Charles and Emma Frye’s Seattle home in the first decades of the twentieth century. The couple displayed their collection in a purpose-built gallery attached to their house in the First Hill neighborhood, where they often hosted concerts and charitable events—a model of cross-disciplinary engagement that continues to inspire museum programming today. 

The Frye periodically invites contemporary artists to experiment within the traditional collection display. Seattle artist Dawn Cerny—subject of the concurrent solo exhibition Portmeirion—stages her functional sculptures in conversation with the Frye Salon to consider how we live with art. A window cut into the wall separating the two exhibitions offers unexpected sightlines that reshape our view of the museum space.