Henry Art Gallery

The Henry Art Gallery, commonly known as "the Henry," is the contemporary art museum of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it was founded in February 1927 as the first public art museum in the state of Washington. Administered by the Arts Division of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Henry has grown from a single benefactor's gift into a major institution with a collection exceeding 28,000 objects, with particular strengths in contemporary art and the history of photography. Its dual mission of presenting established contemporary artists and fostering emerging talent has made it a significant cultural presence in the Pacific Northwest.

The museum was established through the generosity of Horace C. Henry, a local businessman who had begun collecting art in the 1890s after visiting the Chicago World's Fair. Henry donated his collection of 178 works, assembled with his late wife Susan, along with funds for construction. The gallery opened to the public on February 10, 1927. Some years before, Henry had added gallery space to his Capitol Hill home and, from 1917 until the museum's foundation, operated a wing of his house as a free museum open ten hours weekly. Unlike other local benefactors such as Charles and Emma Frye of Seattle's Frye Art Museum, Henry explicitly disavowed any intention to control the institution's future. The original building was designed by Seattle architects Bebb and Gould and constructed between 1926 and 1927. The museum was expanded in 1997 to 40,000 square feet, with a 154-seat auditorium added; this expansion was designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects.

The Henry's collection encompasses more than 28,000 objects from around the world, including photographs, prints, drawings, paintings, ceramics, costumes, and textiles. The institution concentrates on building a multidisciplinary collection of contemporary art, including installations, videos, sculptures, paintings, and works on paper. Its exhibition program is largely devoted to contemporary art and the history of photography. Growth from the 1950s through the 1970s was strongly influenced by the University of Washington art faculty, exhibition purchases, and works by the Northwest Designer Craftsmen. The museum also reflects the influence of Japanese aesthetics in the Pacific Northwest through holdings of Japanese color woodcuts, textile designs, and folk ceramics assembled in the 1960s by Robert Sperry, Frances and Thomas Blakemore, and Elizabeth Bayley Willis.

The photography collection stands as a particular strength, founded in 1979 through the partial gift and purchase of the Joseph and Elaine Monsen collection. Spanning from the medium's origins in the 1840s to the present, it now numbers more than 3,000 works and has been expanded through gifts from the Andy Warhol Foundation, Philip A. Bernstein, and Yuri and Zhou. In 2017, the Henry acquired 185 photographic works from the dissolved Washington Art Consortium, comprising its entire photographic collection. The print collection includes the Albert Feldmann Collection of European Master Prints, the Stimson-Bullitt Collection of Nineteenth-century prints, and a 2017 gift of 200 European prints from the 15th to 19th centuries by Albert Feldmann, featuring works by Dürer, Goya, and Hogarth. The museum also holds the Bill and Ruth True Collection of Contemporary Art and the Washington Arts Consortium Collection of American Photographs, 1970-1980. A signature installation is James Turrell's Skyspace, Light Reign, a site-specific immersive sculpture completed in 2003 with a retractable roof, illuminated at night by color-changing electroluminescent diodes behind frosted glass. In 1982, the Henry inherited a substantial collection from the University of Washington's former Costume and Textile Study Center.

The Henry occupies a prominent position on the west edge of the University of Washington campus in Seattle's University District. The original building, designed by Bebb and Gould and erected between 1926 and 1927, is considered architecturally significant as one of the finest of Carl F. Gould's twenty-eight buildings on the campus. The 1997 expansion by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects increased the museum to 40,000 square feet and added a 154-seat auditorium, substantially increasing the institution's capacity for exhibitions and public programs.

The Henry Art Gallery is located at the west edge of the University of Washington campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in Seattle's University District. As a unit of the University of Washington, it is administered by the Arts Division of the College of Arts and Sciences. The museum provides public access to its collections through the Eleanor Henry Reed Collection Study Center and an online collections database, allowing students and the general public to explore holdings for personal or professional research. Objects may be accessed on-site by reservation through the Reed Collection Study Center, academic classes, adult study groups, and researchers. The museum also administers the Brink Award, a biennial prize of $12,500 established in 2008 for an emerging artist from Washington, Oregon, or British Columbia. Since 2016, the annual Monsen Photography Lecture series has brought significant figures in photographic art to the Pacific Northwest, named for Dr. Joseph and Elaine Monsen to advance knowledge and appreciation of photography.