Press and media resources. Logos, photography, founder biography, fast facts, and a contact for interviews and tours.
Jump to the press kitThe Occidental Fine Arts Center is a working studio and public gallery in the heart of Seattle’s Pioneer Square. Its goal is to become the epicenter of the most ambitious art, bringing people together around beautiful things while being a service to the city.
Studios sit upstairs, exhibitions open at street level, and workshops, fellowships, and commissions develop exceptional artists. It is the physical home of the Conru Art Foundation’s mission, asking art to serve three words tiled into the entryway: Beauty, Truth, and Love.
Current programs include the Beautiful Things exhibition, the Seattle Art Prize, Atelier workshops, Love Portrait commissions, and Master Copies.
What
A working studio and public gallery for ambitious, beautiful art
Where
311½ Occidental Ave S, Pioneer Square, Seattle, WA 98104
Founder
Andrew Conru, founder of the Conru Art Foundation
Admission
Open to the public
Values
Beauty, Truth, Love
Programs
Beautiful Things, Seattle Art Prize, Atelier workshops, Love Portrait commissions, Master Copies
Founder biography
Andrew Conru is an engineer, entrepreneur, artist, and philanthropist. He grew up on a small farm in northern Indiana, studied mechanical engineering and economics at Rose-Hulman, and earned a PhD at Stanford.
A pioneer of the social internet, he invented the first online dating site, WebPersonals.com, in 1994, and founded Friend Finder Networks in 1996. The network eventually grew to over 700 million registered members worldwide. After selling the company in 2007, he reacquired a 98% stake in 2021 to steer its future and apply its resources toward public good.
Today he directs the Conru Art Foundation and its family of programs, including the Occidental Fine Arts Center, the Seattle Art Prize, PublicDisplay.ART, and the Beautiful Things exhibition. Uniquely for a foundation of this scale, Andrew is the primary architect of its operations: he writes 100% of the public copy across its sites, built the software pipelines that power them, and personally directs the AI story systems bringing the archival exhibitions to life.
His work returns to a single idea: that beauty, honestly made, reminds us what we have in common. He treats personal wealth as something held in the public trust, and the Occidental Fine Arts Center is where that conviction takes physical form.
“My goal was never just to make beautiful art, but rather to remind us what we have in common.”
Logos and photography for editorial use. Please keep clear space around the logo and do not recolor it.
Primary logo (SVG)
Horizontal lockup for light backgrounds
Reversed logo (SVG)
For dark or photographic backgrounds
Icon mark (SVG)
Palette and brush mark, square
Legacy logo (PNG)
Raster lockup, transparent background
Andrew Conru at the Occidental Fine Arts Center, 2025
DownloadFor interviews, images, or a tour of the space:
press@conruartfoundation.orgInstagram @occidentalfinearts
The Occidental Fine Arts Center is a program of the Conru Art Foundation, a Seattle nonprofit supporting contemporary art in service of Beauty, Truth, and Love. 311½ Occidental Ave S, Seattle, WA 98104.