Who needs Vulcan? Seattle-area galleries put together their own DIY art fair

Will there be another Seattle Art Fair? We don’t know.

In April, Vulcan, Inc. — the late Paul Allen’s many-tentacled investment and philanthropic conglomerate — canceled the 2020 fair per the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, in May, Vulcan announced it was shutting down its Arts + Entertainment division, but that the future of Seattle Art Fair (Allen’s brainchild, which premiered in 2015) was a question mark.

It’s still a question mark. But 40 local galleries, 18 of them in Pioneer Square, have banded together to create the Seattle Deconstructed Art Fair, a DIY version of the summer’s major art event, which reported drawing between 15,000 and 22,500 people each year.

The idea is simple and barely a week old: galleries announce their own decentralized fair (each gallery hosting its own show in its own space for the month of August), build a group website, then do whatever they like.

• 07/20/2020
• Seattle Times

After Long Journey, Cumming Mural Back on Display

William Cumming painted a mural in 1941 for Burlington High School’s new farm shop. The painting depicts dairy farming, berry picking, logging and building railroads, a celebration of agriculture and industry in Skagit County.

• 02/9/2020
• Skagit Valley Herald

Art from the Corcoran reestablishes its place in D.C. with exhibition at American University

American University graduate student Michael Quituisaca didn’t know what to expect when he began rooting through the paintings, prints and photographs newly arrived at the university museum’s storage facility, the first of 9,000 works given to American by the now-defunct Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Kenneth Callahan, The Waiters, 1964. Oil on canvas, 50 15/16 x 33 3/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art to the American University Museum, 2018

• 09/6/2019
• Washington Post

Seattle Art Fair is the shiny new kid on the block this weekend

The Blue Angels roared into Seattle this week, ushering in the 70th annual Seafair weekend.  But for the past four years Seafair has shared the civic celebration spotlight with the shiny new kid on the block: the Seattle Art Fair, the brainchild of the late philanthropist, Paul Allen.

• 08/2/2019
• KUOW - NPR

Seattle Art Fair 2018: Robots, Puppets and Million-Dollar Paintings Part of this Year’s Extravaganza

Seattle Art Fair, back for its fourth year, has become a major event, attracting tens of thousands of people from around the world and setting the Seattle arts scene ablaze with gossip, speculation and satellite events.

• 07/26/2019
• Seattle Times

Michael Spafford At Greg Kucera, Woodside/Braseth and Davidson Galleries, Seattle, Washington

Purportedly three years in the planning, the three-gallery survey of veteran Pacific Northwest painter Michael C. Spafford brings together dozens of paintings and prints, a hardbound catalogue, beautiful installations and lighting.

• 05/15/2018
• Visual Art Source

An epic show for artist Michael Spafford: 25 years in the making

Think of Michael Spafford’s “Epic Works” exhibition as a museum-scale retrospective distributed among three art galleries.

• 04/17/2018
• Crosscut

Art Zone: Michael Spafford’s ‘Epic Works’

Renowned Northwest painter Michael Spafford gets an epic three-gallery retrospective of his work. Nancy Guppy chats with the curators of the unique exhibition: Spike Mafford, Michael’s son, and Lisa Dutton, Michael’s daughter-in-law.

• 04/7/2018
• ArtZone

Three Seattle galleries join forces to display works of artist Michael Spafford

More than 100 Spafford works will be on view this spring during an unprecedented collaboration by Davidson Galleries, Greg Kucera Gallery and Woodside/Braseth Gallery.

• 03/29/2018
• Seattle Times

Celebrating William Cumming and Jacob Lawrence at Woodside/Braseth Gallery

Now “A Centennial Celebration: William Cumming & Jacob Lawrence” offers a chance to dig deeper into these two artists’ legacies…

• 11/14/2017
• Seattle Times