In and around Seattle in the 1930s and 1940s, there emerged a group of artists who came to be known informally as the Northwest School. With no manifesto and no sense of group identity, they had little in common beyond poverty and the drive to make art in a way that was true to their inner being and their environment. Despite their denial that they constituted a school, their response to Northwest light and to the world around them created a distinctive style that continued to evolve over the next 60 years.