Immersed in the Art Scene

Located across the street from Seattle Art Museum and some of the city’s most exciting galleries, Four Seasons Hotel Seattle is the perfect home base for anyone who loves the arts. But you don’t have to leave our doors to find the latest in Pacific Northwest art.

The Hotel’s interiors are packed with paintings, prints and works in glass and steel from various Pacific Northwest artists. From the moment you open your eyes in your bedroom, walk the guest room hallways, or walk to Goldfinch Tavern, immerse yourself in a self-guided tour, introducing more than 36 Washington-based artists.

At the Hotel’s entrance on Union Plaza, the Hotel commissioned local artist Gerard Tsutakawa to design a bronze sculpture, titled Thunderbolt, which stands next to a fountain overlooking the waterfront and the Seattle Great Wheel. Upon entering the Hotel, an 81-inch-wide (2 metre) screen by collage-master Paul Horiuchi serves as a dramatic focal point behind the lobby reception desk.

Other pieces will quickly vie for your attention. The 40-piece art collection at Four Seasons Hotel Seattle, which focuses on the work of Pacific Northwest artists, is the most extensive collection of its kind. Unique to the Hotel, the artwork was selected and organized by Virginia Wright, who was Seattle’s most prominent arts patron and collector. This is the only significant collection residing outside of a museum or gallery.

Individual guest rooms display a selection of 16 works by classic Northwest artists including Mark Tobey, Guy Anderson, Morris Graves and Kenneth Callahan, reproduced from the collection across the street from the Hotel at Seattle Art Museum.

Each guest room hallway on floors three to 10 showcases eight different artists. Corinna English is a Coast Salish artist, of Quinault (enrolled) Squaxin, Chinook and Cowlitz descent, whose art graces the Residential elevator landing and entrance to the 4th floor infinity pool. Lisa DeBaetsis a visual artist living and working outside Seattle, Washington whose original watercolour paintings and prints on the 7th floor depict the outdoors of the Evergreen State.

In Goldfinch Tavern, Pacific Northwest artists Guy Anderson’s Northwest Totem with Waterfall, Alden Mason’s Red Surprise, and Margaret Tomkins’s Untitled are displayed alongside custom blown glass by Seattle-based Julie Conway of Illuminata Art Glass Design. The newest piece of art is Goldfinch & Mt. Rainier, specially created by John A. Ruthven, WWII veteran, naturalist, author, lecturer, and internationally acclaimed master of wildlife art.

Whether you consider yourself a connoisseur or a casual admirer, you might just leave Four Seasons with a new favourite artist.