Arts in Seattle - Early 20th Century

Early 20th Century

Success in the Gold Rush era made several box house entrepreneurs think of grander things. John Considine and Alexander Pantages pioneered vaudeville circuits; John Cort became a leading impresario of legitimate theater, at one time controlling more quality theaters around the country than anyone else in America. It would be many decades before Seattle ever again had a comparable impact on American arts and entertainment to what it had in these years.

Seattle theater around 1910 included stock shows at the Alhambra and at Pantages' Lois Theater, and vaudeville at Pantages' Crystal and Pantages theaters and at Considine's Orpheum and Star. Cort and others presented various "quality" entertainment at the Moore and Grand Opera House. In addition, the Dream Theater presented silent films with pipe organ accompaniment. The Metropolitan Theatre opened in the Metropolitan Tract in 1911. Owned by New York-based K&E, it was the grandest theater Seattle had seen up to that time. But the 1912 economic downturn led to a marked decrease in this activity.

Although Seattle in the early 20th century was more of a center for variety shows and vaudeville than for the high arts, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra (SSO) was founded in 1903. Nor was the SSO alone: there were two separate Seattle Musical Arts societies, a Schubert Society, and a Seattle Choral Symphony. The Ladies' Musical Society was particularly prominent in bringing world-class performers to Seattle; a pinnacle among their programming was a 1908 concert where Fritz Kreisler and Harold Bauer performed Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, Brahms' Paganini Variations, Schubert's Moments Musicaux, and Schumann's Fantasiestücke.

The Cornish School—later the Cornish Institute and now Cornish College of the Arts, an accredited college with courses in the sciences and humanities as well—was founded in 1914 by Nellie Cornish. Initially a music school, but later equally known for dance, theater, and visual arts, it thrived for decades under her leadership; although its quality slackened after her death, it eventually recovered and remains an important arts education institution to this day.

With no art museums at this time, Seattle played a less prominent role in the visual arts, although Seattle-based Edward S. Curtis and his onetime assistant Imogen Cunningham (who spent about a decade in Seattle) were important in establishing photography as an art form. Caroline Mytinger became known in Seattle for her paintings of natives from the Solomon Islands.