Seattle Art Museum

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) opened in Volunteer Park in 1933 under founder Dr. Richard E. Fuller. The museum presented modern art and changing exhibitions at the Seattle Art Museum Pavilion at the Seattle Center from 1963 until the museum’s move to its present downtown location in Seattle in 1991. A landmark exhibition, Treasures of Tutankhamun, at Seattle Center in 1978 helped to fuel plans for the expansion of the museum to downtown. The Volunteer Park facility was rededicated as the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in 1994 focusing on the museum’s extensive Asian collections, and underwent a renovation and expansion in 2020. In 2007 a substantial expansion doubled space at the downtown facility, and the museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park opened on Seattle’s waterfront. SAM’s three facilities are home to nearly 25,000 pieces of art from a range of time periods and global cultures. 

• Primary Form of Entity: Nonprofit
• Primary Artistic Discipline: Visual Arts, Media Arts, Design, Crafts, Folk/Traditional/Heritage Arts
• Primary Areas of Activity: Presenter, Arts Education: Children and Youth, Arts Education: Adults, Venue/Facility 

Research and Resources

Visit Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Asian Art Museum, and Olympic Sculpture Park

HistoryLink.org: Seattle Art Museum opens in Volunteer Park on June 23, 1933

DoubleXposure Podcast:  Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park: An Urban Oasis (2022)

Black Arts Legacies:  Marita Dingus (2022)

Seattle Art Museum records, 1908-2004 University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections