{"id":1865,"date":"2010-08-15T22:16:43","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T05:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2010\/08\/the_frye_art_museum_dares_to_b_1\/"},"modified":"2010-08-15T22:16:43","modified_gmt":"2010-08-16T05:16:43","slug":"the_frye_art_museum_dares_to_b_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2010\/08\/the_frye_art_museum_dares_to_b_1.html","title":{"rendered":"The Frye Art Museum dares to be dull"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Frye<\/a> is Rip Van Winkle with a sequel. It slumbered through the 20th Century and woke up in the 21st. Here’s the sequel: After striving mightily to keep its eyes open, it’s once again nodding off. <\/p>\n

Little that Charles and Emma Frye acquired rises to the ranks of first-rate. Charles Frye saw Modernism as an unworthy aberration. Ida Kaye Greathouse, who followed her husband Charles<\/strike> Walser as the museum’s head, was if anything more conservative, although I am fond of a core of her late 19th and early 20th-century American purchases. Yes, she was after big names at reduced prices, rather than the best possible examples of same, but even so she managed to snag some great pictures.  <\/p>\n

Senior curator Robin Held sees it as her job to present the collections in the best possible light. She even brought on staff a specialist in the so-called Munich Secession, to help her. Fine, I thought. Let Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker<\/span> handle the mixed-bag legacy and allow Held to focus on the contemporary moment. That’s her strength and the reason the Seattle audience  developed high expectations from a dubious little institution.<\/p>\n

Instead, legacy is in the driver’s seat. Everything now on view dares to be dull. <\/p>\n

First up, Ida Kay Greathhouse: A Tribute<\/i><\/a>. Where are her American greats? Not on view.<\/p>\n

John Singer Sargent must have been short of cash to paint the vacuous flattery known as Mrs. Frederick William Roller<\/i> from 1895. Those to continue to see him as shallow can bolster their viewpoint at the Frye.<\/p>\n

\"johnsingerfrye.jpg\"Thomas Moran did his best work at Yellowstone National Park. He’s a large part of the reason we have national parks. In Venice in 1908, however, he turned in a poor imitation of Turner. <\/p>\n

\"thomasmoranfrye.jpg\"Greathouse adored the Russian expatriate Nicolai Ivanovich Fechin. I imagine she had her pick of that market. Below, Lady in Pink (Portrait of Natalia
\nPodbelskaya)<\/i>, 1912. <\/p>\n

\"fechinfrye.jpg\"Onward to another Greathouse tick: Northern Latitudes: The Frye and Alaska<\/em><\/a>, featuring  Jules Dahlager, Ted Lambert, Sydney Laurence, Fred
\nMachetanz, Theodore Richardson, Cleveland Rockwell, Jonathan Van Zyle,
\nand Eustace Ziegler<\/span>.  They’re not all terrible painters. I like Rockwell, but why these painters? And why didn’t she pick better examples? Most of the ones she brought home are bombastic at best. <\/p>\n

That leaves
\nT\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate<\/em><\/a>: 150 paintings from the Charles and Emma’s overexposed, profoundly mediocre holdings; Fred Machetanz<\/a> <\/span>(1908-2002)<\/span> photos<\/strike> lithographs of the standard sublime in Alaska, and the somewhat interesting <\/span>A Day in Skaguay<\/em><\/a>, filmed by Burton Holmes (1870-1958), who in 1904 coined the term travelogue<\/em> to advertise travel lectures with projections of hand-painted glass-lantern slides and early films.<\/span> Interesting that everyone was fashionable and white in Alaska during those early years. <\/p>\n

Out of kindness I’m skipping the exhibit exclaiming over Charles Frye’s entrepreneurial efforts.<\/span> (He was a meat packer and landlord.) Museums need to remember that’s it’s OK to take the money, but they don’t have to kiss the customer on the lips.<\/p>\n

The Frye picks up the pace in the fall. <\/p>\n

Opening Oct. 9, still more about the Munich Secession: S\u00e9ance: Albert von Keller and the Occult, but there’s also Implied Violence: Yes and More and Yes and Yes and Why<\/i>, featuring sculptures, costumes, props, masks, video- and photo-documentation of
\nselected past performances of the Seattle performance group as well as a new performance created for the Frye. That could be good. Who gets the catalog? Keller and his swooning ladies, of course. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Frye is Rip Van Winkle with a sequel. It slumbered through the 20th Century and woke up in the 21st. Here’s the sequel: After striving mightily to keep its eyes open, it’s once again nodding off. Little that Charles and Emma Frye acquired rises to the ranks of first-rate. Charles Frye saw Modernism as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}