Whatcom Museum's Largest Fundraiser Asks Community to Support Access to Art
Tickets are on sale now for the Whatcom Museum’s annual gala, which will be held on Friday, September 26, 2025, in the Chuckanut Bay Distillery ballroom. This year’s theme celebrates the bold spirit and enduring influence of French modernist visionaries like Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, and Henri Matisse—artists whose work is on view at the museum thanks to a long-term loan through the National Gallery of Art.
Though admired today, artists like these were shunned and labeled ‘degenerate’ during their lifetimes for challenging the status quo. The inspiration for this year’s gala is the perseverance of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists whose work blazed the trail for greater accessibility in the arts.
“That’s central to our mission and to the work we do every day,” said Whatcom Museum Acting Executive Director Maria Coltharp. “The feedback we’re getting is that there’s a growing need for access to the museum’s collections and programming. It’s a trend we need to nurture as the regional repository for art and history.”
“People might be surprised to learn that while the cost of an adult admission ticket to the museum is $12, the Whatcom Museum Foundation spends more than $25 per visitor to do everything from curating award-winning exhibitions and conserving our permanent collection to offering free and low-cost public events and K-12 programs,” added museum Development Manager Kara Henry. “To do that, we rely on grants and the generosity of our community.”
Federal grants have long provided a reliable financial lifeline to keep museum doors open by funding major exhibitions and refurbishments. But recent agency cuts have left institutions like the Whatcom Museum in a lurch, waiting to hear if grants will be reinstated.
To help support the museum’s work while also making the gala itself more accessible to guests, ticket prices were reduced from $150 of years past to $100, with a limited number of lower-cost and free tickets available to participating local artists and partners.
The Whatcom Museum is also offering a pre-gala VIP absinthe-tasting experience in Chuckanut Distillery’s rooftop bar, complete with the traditional absinthe-pouring ritual, live music, and a discussion of 'the green fairy’s' role in 19th century French art, led by museum Chief Curator Amy Chaloupka. The VIP experience is sold out, but those guests will have open bar access the entire evening and leave with a bottle of Chuckanut’s Madame Richelieu Absinthe, courtesy of Lautenbach Recycling. Standard gala tickets are still available, however.
At the gala, guests will enjoy heavy appetizers and dessert, signature absinthe cocktails and full bar, live French chanson and bossa nova music, still life painting stations, and a silent auction offering Yo-Yo Ma and FIFA World Cup 2026 tickets, a signed lithograph by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse Collection East Fork Pottery, a 1978 collector’s wine from Château Lafite Rothschild, and much more.
“The Whatcom Museum opened in 1941 because of the dedication of Bellingham citizens who wanted a museum that reflected our region’s history, art, and cultures. We are proud to be a museum of and for the community we serve,” said Coltharp.
"Art, Access, and Absinthe" runs from 6–9 pm on Friday, September 26, 2025, and is generously presented by Peoples Bank, Patti Imhoff & Ashley Kimberley, VSH Certified Public Accountants, Edward Jones Financial Advisor Kelsey Klevenberg, Lautenbach Recycling, and Mountain Pacific Bank.
Tickets are on sale now, and all proceeds directly support the museum’s operations, including exhibitions and educational programming. Those who cannot attend the gala but would like to bid on auction items may visit the Whatcom Museum’s website to be taken to an auction registration page. From there, they’ll be able to preview items and bid remotely when the auction begins.
The Whatcom Museum was one of 10 museums nationwide to receive long-term loans this year from the National Gallery of Art as part of its Across the Nation program. Works by Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse are on view at the museum through early 2027. For a full list of current exhibitions, visit the Whatcom Museum website.
The Whatcom Museum Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
About the Whatcom Museum
The Whatcom Museum was founded in 1941 and overlooks Washington State’s Bellingham Bay. Notable projects have included the 2019 retrospective exhibition WANTED: Ed Bereal for Disturbing the Peace, featured in The New York Times; the award-winning, co-curated exhibition Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea, which traveled to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., in 2023; and Verdant: French Masterworks from the National Gallery of Art, which is on view through early 2027. Also on view are Mary Ann Peters' myself inside your story, Meander by Io Palmer, and A Pull to the Pacific: West Coast Lithography of the New Deal Era. The Whatcom Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
The Whatcom Museum campus in downtown Bellingham includes three buildings: the Lightcatcher, Old City Hall, and Old Fire Station No. 1. For more information about exhibitions and admission, visit whatcommuseum.org.
