What Once Was: Picturing the Pacific Northwest

This exhibition presents a selection of works that complement and resonate with Eirik Johnson’s photographic series, Sawdust Mountain. Historical works by photographers such as brothers Darius and Clark Kinsey, Carleton E. Watkins, and John Cobb fill these walls. These late 19th- and early 20th-century photographers captured a landscape rife with promise and hope for a westward-migrating population eager for work in the fishing and logging industries. The subjects of the photographs range from revealing portraits of loggers to tranquil panoramas of the Columbia River; from fish strewn across a factory floor to felled trees scattered in clear-cut piles; and from an untouched landscape to a setting marked by man’s optimistic faith in the endless bounty of nature. Whereas Darius’s charming vignette of a cabin in the woods attests to the endless forest in its virgin state, Clark’s record of a logging site and lumber factory suggests the aftermath. These photographs, like Johnson’s taken a century later, picture man’s role in an ever-changing environment – a bittersweet reminder for the rural population of present day. Along with these historical precedents that influenced Johnson, the Henry presents a selection of more recent works by artists whose work captures the essence of this region.

This exhibition comprises works from the private collections of Drs. Joseph and Elaine Monsen and Dr. Maren Grainger-Monsen, the University of Washington Special Collections, and the Henry’s permanent collection.