A Commissioned Triptych for Longacres: Honoring a Pacific Northwest Racetrack Legacy Through Art

Honoring a Legacy in Motion: A Commissioned Triptych for Longacres

Some projects arrive with the story already written. You just have to find the right artist to tell it.

Longacres is one of the most storied sites in the Pacific Northwest. Before it became a Boeing campus and, most recently, home to the Seattle Sounders FC’s Providence Swedish Performance Center & Clubhouse, it was the Longacres Racetrack. This racetrack was the heart of thoroughbred horse racing in Western Washington from 1933 through 1992. For nearly six decades, the thundering of hooves defined this land. That history doesn’t disappear when a building goes up.

So when the interior design team at Perkins&Will came to us with a clear brief — they wanted to honor the site’s equestrian history in the lobby art, but without being literal about it — we knew immediately where to turn.

The Brief: A Nod, Not a Nameplate

This is the kind of curatorial challenge we love: how do you reference something without illustrating it? The client didn’t want framed archival photography of the racetrack, or a painted portrait of a horse mid-stride. They wanted the energy, the spirit, and the sense of motion and history that the land carries. Also, these qualities needed to be expressed through the contemporary language of fine art.

Working closely with the Perkins&Will design team, we identified Jean Richardson as the ideal artist for a commissioned triptych. Richardson is best known for her large-scale abstract paintings of horses — works in which the animal emerges from an explosion of jewel tones and gestural brushwork. In her work, the horse is present but not literal, felt more than seen. Her horse is not a subject. It’s a symbol: of motion, of the untamed spirit, and of energy barely contained.

For a lobby sitting on land where horses once ran, it could not have been a more fitting choice.

The Commission

Richardson created a three-panel triptych that now spans the lobby wall above a sophisticated seating arrangement of cream, charcoal, and golden velvet. The paintings are all movement and light — white forms surging through fields of amber, crimson, olive, and deep blue. The horses are present in every brushstroke without ever becoming illustration. Together the three panels create a continuous sense of motion. As a result, it feels as though the herd is still running, just beyond the reach of the frame.

The scale is important. A single painting here would have been a decoration. Three panels at this size become an experience — something you feel before you fully understand what you’re looking at.

Why Commissioned Art Makes the Difference

This project is a good example of why we advocate so strongly for commissioned work in commercial spaces with meaningful context. An existing piece might have come close. However, a commission made it possible to work directly with Richardson on scale, proportion, and the specific emotional register the space required.

The result is art that belongs to Longacres in a way no off-the-shelf selection ever could — a work made for this lobby, on this land, carrying this history forward.

Interested in commissioning original art for a commercial space with a story to tell? Contact us to learn more about our commercial consulting and commission services.