Explore Seattle's Central Downtown Civic Art Collection on a Walking Tour

The City of Seattle's civic art collection includes several works in the central downtown area. Seattle's foray into establishing a public art collection began in 1907 when a commission was formed to create a sculptural monument of Chief Seattle (Si'ahl, ca. 1780-1866), Chief of the Suquamish and Duwamish tribes, who greeted the city’s first white settlers in the mid-nineteenth century. Since then, the city has committed to building a civic art collection by creating a city department dedicated to the arts and culture and enacting one of the country’s first public-art ordinances that dedicates at least one percent of funds for construction projects to art. Since its beginning, the collection has grown to over 400 publicly sited/integrated works and nearly 3,600 portable works. Art pieces on this tour are sited in or near Seattle cultural and civic institutions — a library, a concert hall, a museum, a small city park, and a convention center — highlighting the variety of spaces that public art can occupy. To take this walking tour, visit HistoryLink.Tours.