Seattle Culture
Cascadia Art Museum Lands a Game-Changing Gift of Timeless Treasures
More than 75 rare Northwest paintings join the museum’s collection
By Sarah Stackhouse March 20, 2025
What did the Aurora Bridge or South Lake Union look like in the 1930s? Probably not the way you picture it. Before tech campuses and traffic jams, Seattle’s waterfront and cityscapes had a different kind of energy — one captured in some of the paintings now headed to Cascadia Art Museum.
Thanks to a major donation, the Edmonds museum will soon house the largest private collection of early Northwest paintings ever gifted to a museum. The collection — more than 75 works — features historically significant landscapes and scenes from Oregon to Alaska, painted by masters such as Sydney Laurence, John Fery, Eustace Ziegler, and William Trost Richards.
The gift comes from Mike and Lynn Garvey, longtime supporters of Northwest art who have spent more than 30 years assembling the collection. Since 1993, they’ve sought out works that capture the region’s history and natural beauty, spanning 150 years of change and evolution. Many of these paintings have never been publicly displayed.
That changes this spring when Cascadia debuts two exhibitions showcasing the collection: Northwest Masterworks from The Garvey Family Collection (April 3-Sept. 7) and Part 2 (Sept. 13-March 15, 2026).
To honor the gift, the museum is naming a permanent space the Garvey Family Gallery. “The Garveys’ deep connection to the Pacific Northwest spans generations, and their generosity is truly transformative,” Executive Director Sally Ralston says.
As Cascadia hits its 10-year mark, this gift makes it an even better place to take in Northwest art. With these paintings on the walls, visitors can see the region through the eyes of the artists who lived it — what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and what still feels unmistakably like home.
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