David F. Martin

David F. Martin is an arts researcher, writer, curator and historian who has documented the art history of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest since 1986 as well as Western New York State since 1981. He is the leading authority on early Washington State art and artist’s. Many of the artists he has chosen to focus on are women, Japanese and Chinese Americans, Gay & Lesbian and other minorities who had established national and international reputations during the period 1890-1960.

Since 2015: Curator for Cascadia Art Museum, Edmonds, Washington.

He is former Program Director for the American Art Council at the Seattle Art Museum. For three years he served as regional President of the Northwest Chapter of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. He is the author of several award-winning books and catalogues and contributes essays and catalogue entries for national and international publications on painting, printmaking and photography.

David is an Honorary Member of Women Painters of Washington, the only man to have received this honor. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts, May, 2017.

Select activities and publications:

Lecture: The Influence of Japanese Prints on early 20th century artists of Washington State, USA, Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation, London, England, April 24, 2025

Speaker, panel discussion, Japanese American artists, Smithsonian American Art Museum, March 14, 2025

Lecture: Japanese Modernist Painters in Seattle, 1910-1970, Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation, London, England, April 25, 2024

Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild, 2023.

Lecture: Pictorialist Photography: Soichi Sunami and his Issei Contemporaries, Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation, London, England, April 26, 2023

Author and curator: George Tsutakawa: Early Works on Paper, Cascadia Art Museum, University of Washington Press, December, 2022.

Curator and co-author (with Barbara Johns): "Kenjiro Nomura, American Modernist: An Issei Artist's Journey”, 2021, Cascadia Art Museum, University of Washington Press, 2021

Curator and Author: The Lavender Palette: Gay Culture and the Art of Washington State (with additional essay by David L. Chapman), published by Cascadia Art Museum, University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, July, 2020

Curator and Author: Invocation of Beauty: The Life and Photography of Soichi Sunami (1885-1971), University of Washington Press, Seattle & London. October 11, 2018 – January 6, 2019

Lecture: January 4, 2018: Featured speaker and panel participant at the Denver Art Museum’s Petrie Institute of Western American Art, Beyond America’s Heartland: Regionalism and the Art of the American West.

Co-author of catalogue and co-curator of exhibition.

Captive Light: The Art & Photography of Ella E. McBride (1862-1965)

Tacoma Art Museum

March 17 – July 8, 2018.

University of Washington Press, Seattle & London.

Author: Territorial Hues: The Color Print and Washington State, 1920-1960, Cascadia Art Museum, University of Washington Press, release date October 2017.

Author: Contributed entries for the collections catalogue for the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Logan, Utah, 2016.

Author: A Fluid Tradition- Northwest Watercolor Society at 75

University of Washington Press, 2015.

Lecture: Surviving Art History: Pictorialist Photography and Artistic Reputation, November 26, 2014, University of London, Birkbeck, School of Art, London, England.

Lecture and panel discussion: Inspirations – Interactions: Pictorialism Reconsidered, November 21, 22, 23, 2013, Staatliche Museum, Berlin, Germany.

Co- author and Co-Curator with Margaret Bullock: Austere Beauty: The Art of Z. Vanessa Helder. Tacoma Art Museum, July 27 – October 20, 2013; O’Kane Gallery, University of Houston-Downtown, Houston, Texas, January 23 – March 6, 2014. University of Washington Press.

Author, “The Art of Z. Vanessa Helder”, American Art Review, October, 2013.

Author: “Art For Art’s Sake”, feature article about Buffalo, NY artist Arthur Kowalski (1893-1958)

Western New York Heritage Magazine, Volume 15 No. 3, Fall 2012.

Lecture: The Lavender Palette: Gay Northwest Artists in the Early 20th Century.


Saturday, March 24, 2013, Tacoma Art Museum.

A Turbulent Lens: The Photographic Art of Virna Haffer

Tacoma Art Museum, July - November, 2011. Co- author of catalogue and co-curator of exhibition with Margaret Bullock.

Winner of the 2012 Award of Exhibit Excellence from the Washington Museum Association.

Evergreen Muse: The Art of Elizabeth Colborne, guest curator and author of accompanying catalogue, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA, June 17 - October 9, 2011. University of Washington Press.

Mentioned in the New York Times, April 19, 2012, “These Women Refused To Stay in the Kitchen”.

Co-Author: Shadows of a Fleeting World: Pictorial Photography and the Seattle Camera Club, University of Washington Press, 2011 Advisor to accompanying exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery, February 12 – May 8, 2011

The CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education) Awards recognized Shadows of a Fleeting World: Pictorial Photography and the Seattle Camera Club in their Collaborative Programs category with a Gold Award from among 32 national entries.

Guest Curator and author of accompanying book : Cut from Nature: The Art of Richard Bennett for the Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, University of Washington Press, August 27. 2010- March 27, 2011.

Nominated for the Virginia Marie Folkins Award for outstanding historical publication by the Association of King County Historical Organizations.

Author: Yvonne Twining Humber: A Washington Painter of Renown and Obscurity, Columbia :The Magazine of Northwest History, Winter, 2009 issue

Author: Tony Sisti: Buffalo’s Two-Canvas Knockout. Article about Professional Boxer and fine arts painter active in New York State during the Great Depression. Western New York Heritage Magazine, Volume 12 Number 3, Fall 2009.

Author: Yvonne Twining Humber 1907-2004 : Her Life and Her Legacy, “The Urban and Rural Musings of an American Painter”.

Artist Trust Publication, 2007.

Co-Author with Michael L. James: Intimate Spirits: Remembering the Art & Lives of Annie Crawford and Emma Kaan.

Western New York Heritage magazine Volume 10 #3, Fall, 2007.

Author: Contributed entries for the catalogue, Selected Paintings & Sculpture from the Collection of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 2007 .

Co-Author with Michael L. James: Encyclopedia of New York State, Syracuse University Press, 2005. "Art in Rochester and Central New York" and “Murals in New York State".

Author and Curator: “An Enduring Legacy: Women Painters Of Washington, 1930-2005” (University of Washington Press) Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA. May 22, 2005 through September 11, 2005. Winner of the Bellingham Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, 2005.

Second Printing, May, 2012.

Author: “An Enduring Legacy: Women Painters Of Washington, 1930-2005” feature article, American Art Review , June, 2005.

Curator and catalogue author: “From Lake Union to the Louvre: The Etchings of Paul Morgan Gustin” , Frye Art Museum, , September , 2004 through January, 2005.

Author : “Eugene M. Dyczkowski: Lusty Realist of Depression-Era Buffalo”.

Western New York Heritage magazine, Winter, 2004, Volume 6, number 4.

Author : "Niagara's Visual Music in the Paintings of Claire Shuttleworth (1867-1930)"

Western New York Heritage magazine, Winter, 2003, Volume 6, Number 1.

Author: “Painted With Light: Photographs by the Seattle Camera Club” American Art Review, February, 2000 issue. Feature essay about Seattle’s first internationally known photographic organization.

Author: Louise Crow Boyac (1891-1968), Northwest Art History, ARTIFACT, A Regional Magazine of the Fine Arts and Antiques, September/October, 1995, Volume 1, No. 2

Author: Lance Wood Hart (1891-1941), Northwest Art History, ARTIFACT, A Regional Magazine of the Fine Arts and Antiques, July/August, 1995, Volume 1, No. 1

David Martin contributed to the following:

Who Was Who in American Art (three volumes), 1564-1975, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press, 1999. Contributed updated biographical material on numerous Northwest and national artists.

An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil and Marian Yoshiki Kovinick, University of Texas Press, 1998.

Yasushi Tanaka: Painter Who Worked in Seattle and Paris, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan, 1997.

Author of a series of articles related to Northwest Art for Historylink, Washington State’s online encyclopedia, published and ongoing:

Ella E. McBride, 1862-1965, Pioneer Mountaineer and Artistic Photographer.

Z. Vanessa Helder: Biographical Essay.

Artists of Washington State During World War II

Dale Chihuly: Biographical essay

Women Painters Of Washington

Edward S. Curtis: Biographical Essay