SOLO Exhibition At the Heathman Hotel

When the new Heathman opened, it was greeted with much fanfare, and The Oregon Journal described it as “Portland’s newest and most modern hotel.” They wrote: “Its planning, construction and general appointments are as modern as ingenuity and talent could possibly make it.”

Unabashedly classic in spirit, the Heathman has always been a storied actor in the city’s artistic conversation, due to its location in the heart of Portland’s cultural district. In the hotel’s early years, from the 1930s to the 1950s, the mezzanine was home to the studios of Portland radio station, KOIN. Within those studios, described as the finest in the country, the station boasted a roster of musicians and entertainers larger than all other local stations combined, and, from their transmitters high above the nearby West Hills, they beamed their signal as far as California, Nevada and Idaho.