Hawaii-inspired Art Deco works subject of new Honolulu Museum of Art exhibition-Eugene Savage murals

From Hawaii Magazine:
Among the exhibit’s most notable fine-art pieces are two series of large murals. The first series was created by Hawaii-based Armenian-American painter Arman Manookian, and was displayed at the Hotel Hana Maui (now Travaasa Hana resort) until 2010. The second series, by painter/sculptor Eugene Savage, is a series of six eight-foot-wide works commissioned in the 1930s by Matson Navigation Co., the then-dominant Hawaii passenger cruise line. Savage’s paintings feature gorgeous Hawaiian men and women smiling, dancing, and celebrating—images that aimed to entice travelers to visit the Islands.

You can read the rest of the article here:
http://www.hawaiimagazine.com/blogs/hawaii_today/2014/7/9/art_deco_hawaii_exhibit_honolulu_museum_of_art_2014

Eugene Savage. Pomp and Circumstance, c. 1940.

Arman Tateos Manookian. Red Sails, c. 1928

The paintings Eugene Savage did for Matson are hanging all together in Honolulu for the first time.

I wish I could go to that exhibit but they do have an accompanying catalog for sale.

http://shop.honolulumuseum.org/index.htm

I'll be there tomorrow! I'll be with some of the works from the highest tiki heaven. I better bring my box of tissues. Man, and I have to learn this from a guy way up in Texas. Thanks TLB. I may not have even known about this exhibit under my nose, if you didn't post it. Honolulu sucks at getting the word out. Thanks again. I can't imagine how I would feel if they put those murals back into the vault without me seeing them. There are some other great murals at that museum. There were some great artist in Hawaii in the early part of the 1900s and it's awesome to feel their spirits while viewing their masterpieces.

[ Edited by: creativenative 2014-07-18 01:55 ]

[ Edited by: creativenative 2014-07-18 01:58 ]

Take pics!

I will if they let me. I usually bust out the camera phone when the guards are doing their rounds away from me. I know there are above cameras watching me but I think they are looking for professional cameras with straight on views by people who might duplicate artworks for the commercial market. Savage's works are good examples of this commercialization for sure. Wish me luck and if successful I'll post my non-threatening shots here on this thread.

Tiki Movies & Tiki TV @ southseascinema.org

[ Edited by: creativenative 2014-07-18 02:22 ]

creativenative, I live in California now.
I'm on the Hawaii Magazine email list and they had an article on the exhibition. The picture of the gallery I took from another online page.

No matter where you are TLB, I appreciate the long distance heads up. Here are some pics from the Museum today. Luckily the Museum lifted the “no photography” band a couple days ago for the exhibit. Also my main camera on my cell phone couldn’t adjust, automatically nor manually to low indoor light or night conditions so I had to use my rear “selfie” camera which worked well but one has to put up with my ugly mug until I got shooting semi blindly from the side.

Before the Art Deco Hawaii exhibit here are some classic Pacific art.

Me, with a couple Robert Dampier portraits of some young Kamehamehas

Theodore Wore painting

Hawaiian Troubadour by Hubert Vos who, I think, influenced others like Sexton & Leetag

One of the first Pacific as a subject artist, Jon Webber from one of James Cook’s voyages

Of course, got to see a Gauguin

Me, in the Pacific Island room with lots of religious idols and carved images

Curiously, an exhibit of western religious idols and carved images was right next door to the Pacific Island exhibit. What is the Museum trying to say?

To the Art Deco Hawaii Exhibit

A beautiful limestone carving by Marguerite Blasingame greets you

Than works by Arman Manookian. Pictured below is my favorite of his works

Than the Holy of Holies of Deco Pacific art, the Eugene Savage room, with for the first time all six of the commissioned murals for Matson industries were displayed in one location. They are much bigger than my photos indicate, just refer to the wide photo of the room for a better perspective on scale. There are tiki in some of the paintings.

Also in the room were original Matson Oceanliner menus of another Hawaii-Deco master of the era, Frank McIntosh

Continuing the rest of the exhibit, here are some other samples.

Two of about 8 prints buy another Deco Master John Kelly

Surfers from Charles Barlett

Mural from Ester Bruton

R. F. Heckman painting, a forerunner to future airline travel posters

Hawaiian teen by Lloyd Sexton

Couple significant paintings, first from Gene Presser who along with Edward Eggleston (second painting) and New York music sheet artists, were some of the first to put Caucasian women in the Polynesian attire. For some, an even bigger fantasy (including the women).

There were many more great artist in this exhibition of Hawaiian Art Deco but surprisingly absent were master Art Deco artist Eric Gill, Millard Sheets and Georgia O'Keeffe (O’Keeffe does have a couple works of her Hawaii period in the Art Deco Hawaii book published as a companion to the exhibit but I don’t recall seeing her work in the exhibit itself or I would of taken a picture of it.) Hope I don’t blow up the TC server with this huge post and hope all can enjoy it, even with my mug in some of the pics.

Matt
CreativeNative

Tiki Movies & Tiki TV @ southseascinema.org

[ Edited by: creativenative 2014-07-19 06:19 ]

Wow - thanks for all the photos!

Thanks for thanking Bamalamalu.

Thanks for all the nice picture.

You are welcome Hiltiki.

That's the stuff, Thanks Matt!

You're welcome too ATP.