This fall the Frye initiates a series of quarterly readings by writers the Museum has invited to explore the stylistic relationships between visual art in the Frye Collection and in special exhibitions and the literary arts. These New Works Reading Performances, starting with a presentation by Frances McCue and Stacey Levine on September 27, will be free.

The series developed from a reading last summer in the Frye galleries by writer and educator Rebecca Brown (internationally published author of eleven books of prose), who discussed the dark tale in Western literature, then read her short story “The Brothers,” a fable she wrote in response to artist Robyn O’Neil’s drawings. Encouraged by the standing-room-only audience’s enthusiastic reception and the subsequent requests for copies of Brown’s short story, the Frye programmed this series of gallery readings by Northwest writers.

In addition, the Frye joined forces with the University of Washington Press to co-publish a book that brings together the two art forms. Co-edited by Brown and Mary Jane Knecht, Frye manager of adult programs and publications, the book joins the work of twelve visual artists—including Gabriel Max and Franz von Stuck (whose artwork is in the Frye Collection), Tim Eitel, Robyn O’Neil, and Sigrid Sandström—with a dozen Northwest writers, including Jack Nesbit, Ryan Boudinot, Frances McCue, Stacey Levine, and Barbara Thomas. The anthology is scheduled for a spring 2009 publication following the reading series’ conclusion.

Join us at the Frye Art Museum for the first in the New Works Reading Perfomances Thursday, September 27, 7 pm for Frances McCue on Franz von Stuck’s Sin and Victoria Haven’s sculptural Altar for Sin, and Stacey Levine on the art of Patricia Piccinini.