Image: Cascadia Art Museum, Edmonds
Cascadia Art Museum’s upcoming exhibition ‘Zoë Dusanne: The Art of Seeing’ will run from September 23, 2026, through January 3, 2027, in the East, Middle, and West Galleries, celebrating the life and career of prominent Seattle cultural figure Zoë Dusanne (1884–1972).
The exhibition features works by prominent and newly rediscovered artists represented by the Zoë Dusanne Gallery, including Paul Horiuchi, B.L. Hyde, John Matsudaira and George Tsutakawa. An expanded biography of Dusanne by Beth Ann Whittaker-Williams and Richelle Munkhoff, co-founders of Plain Sight Archive, will launch at the exhibition opening.
Dusanne returned to Seattle in 1942 and continued collecting art until she opened Seattle’s first professional modern-art gallery in her home in 1950. Through contacts in New York and Europe, she showed modern artists while also promoting Northwest painters, primarily Japanese American artists such as George Tsutakawa, Paul Horiuchi and John Matsudaira.
Her professional background in New York included costuming, stage sets and jewelry design, and she created puppets for the Federal Theatre W.P.A. Marionette Theatre Workshop under Remo Bufano’s direction. In 1957, Dusanne gave Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama her first American exhibition.
After her home gallery was demolished in 1959 to make way for construction of the I-5 Freeway, Dusanne moved to 532 Broadway East and retired in 1964.
