Western Libraries Awarded Grant to Digitize Materials From Noted Pacific Northwest Artists

Thanks to a $5,000 Washington Rural Heritage Grant, the Western Washington University Libraries will be digitizing the correspondence, photographs, sketches, and papers of three prominent Pacific Northwest artists: Guy Anderson, Charles Stokes and Louis Mideke. 

Once digitized, this content will be added to Heritage Resources’ digital collections, as well as the Washington Rural Heritage website, making these materials publicly available for use in research, teaching and private study.

Julia Sapin, chair of Western’s Art department, noted the significance of obtaining in particular the Anderson materials.

“Guy Anderson was a leading figure in the Northwest School of painting and drew attention to this region through his form of abstract expressionism,” Sapin said. “It is a boon to our library’s collection to have this esteemed gift among its offerings, and Western students, as well as students and scholars from across the country, will be able to make use of this resource and increase their understanding of Anderson’s practice and community.”

Western Libraries Heritage Resources is partnering on the project with the Museum of Northwest Art in LaConner and the LaConner Public Library System. Washington Rural Heritage is a collaborative digitization program headquartered at the Washington State Library that brings together unique local history materials from libraries, museums and the private collections of citizens across Washington State.

For more information about this grant, contact Elizabeth Joffrion, director of Heritage Resources at Western Libraries, at (360) 650-3283 or elizabeth.joffrion@wwu.edu, or Paul Piper, Western’s Special Collections librarian, at paul.piper@wwu.edu.