Michael Spafford (1935-2022) was a painter and a professor at the University of Washington School of Art. He moved to Seattle in 1963 when he accepted a position at UW, where he would teach until 1994. Spafford was an advocate for public art, and he was part of the campaign for requiring 1% of spending on public construction projects to be spent on art. Both Seattle and King County passed such a law in 1973. Spafford’s first public art commission, Tumbling Figure, depicted the fall of Icarus and was installed in the Kingdome in 1979. He also created a series of large murals illustrating the Labors of Hercules for the Washington State Legislature chambers in 1980, but the murals were removed against Spafford’s objections after legislators complained they were disturbing or obscene. Spafford’s work often included figures from ancient Greek mythology and featured stylized shapes and stark coloring. He would sometimes cover a canvas in multiple layers of paint, then carve through the layers to create the image.
This photo shows Michael Spafford in 1983, during an exhibition of his work. The exhibition focused on paintings and drawings of the Chimera, a creature from Greek myth.
Caption information source: “Seattle artists remember longtime UW professor Michael Spafford,” by Marcie Sillman, Crosscut, February 8, 2022, retrieved from https://crosscut.com/culture/2022/02/seattle-artists-remember-longtime-uw-professor-michael-spafford Caption information source: “Spafford engages the viewer with his explosive work,” by Regina Hackett, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 8, 1983, page 21.
