This exhibition celebrates and pays homage to the “Golden Era of Northwest Art” by the “Big Four”, Guy Anderson, Kenneth Callahan, Morris Graves, & Mark Tobey and coincides with the exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, “Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: The Mythic and the Mystical.
Guy Anderson, Kenneth Callahan, Morris Graves, & Mark Tobey were the movement’s early participants, and its defining artists, have become known as the “Big Four” or the “Northwest Mystics“.
Their work became recognized nationally when LIFE magazine published a 1953 feature article on them. It was the first such broad recognition of artists from this corner of the world beyond traditional Northwest Native American art forms, which had been long recognized as “Northwest Art”.
These artists combined natural elements of the Puget Sound area with traditional Asian aesthetics to create a novel and distinct regional style, particularly in painting and sculpture. Tobey, Callahan, Graves and Anderson were all immersed in and greatly influenced by the atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest’s environment.
Also on display are works by William Cumming, Paul Horiuchi, Leo Kenney, Alden Mason, Philip McCracken, & George Tsutakawa. We hope you will all take the opportunity to see this important exhibition.
