Spanaway resident Gabriel Landry with a portrait of himself as a boy, drawn by his cousin Eugene Landry. Craig Sailor The News Tribune

 

On the opening day of Gene’s exhibit in Astoria, journalist Craig Sailor happened into the gallery by chance. He had never heard of Eugene Landry or his art, but viewing the show, Sailor, a reporter for the Tacoma News Tribune, knew he had encountered a powerful story. Although “fascinated by all the elements,” his focus is on Landry’s years in Tacoma: the art he made while living there, his years at the Cushman Indian Hospital, and how “Landry’s story was another in a long, tragic history of the hospital and its predecessors.”

Read the full story (including a short video interview with Gene’s cousin Gabriel Landry) here