Collection Framework | Safeco Collection (Uncommon Gifts)
Collection Framework : Safeco Collection
An innovative corporate gift to the Washington Art Consortium secured the Safeco Collection of Northwest art in perpetuity for Washington citizens.
Seattle-based Safeco Insurance Company spent 35 years building an art collection focused to enrich the working environment for its employees, make connections in the community, and to support emerging and mid-career Pacific Northwest artists. The Safeco Collection grew to be one of the leading corporate art collections in America by the time Liberty Mutual Insurance acquired the company in 2008.
Electing to reduce its art holdings, Liberty Mutual partnered with the Washington Art Consortium in 2009 to preserve in Washington 840 works from Safeco Collection's Northwest portfolio—a singular collection that samples one hundred years of Pacific Northwest art, artists and creative influences. Curators from the Consortium's seven member museums collaborated to strategically distribute works, deepening and expanding each member's collection of Northwest art.
Washington Art Consortium acquires and creates access to major art collections in a unique partnership of seven Washington museums that share resources to engage new audiences with visual art, especially the artwork of the Pacific Northwest.
FOUNDING MEMBERS, 1975
Museum of Art, Washington State University
Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture (formerly known as Cheney Cowles Memorial Museum)
Tacoma Art Museum
Western Gallery, Western Washington University
ADDITIONAL MEMBERS
Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, 1979
Henry Gallery, University of Washington, mid-1980s
Seattle Art Museum, 1993