Honolulu Academy of Arts Blog
In the exhibition “Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” is a section of very rare early works by Hokusai, including these two portraits of Kabuki actors. Shawn Eichman, Curator of Asian Art, fills us in Hokusai and Kabuki.
This is the second in a series of podcasts about works in “Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji,” on view through Jan. 3, 2010.
“Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji,” on view through Jan. 3, 2009
In honor of Saint Damien’s canonization, the Department of European and American Art has hung the Academy’s portrait of Joseph Damien de Veuster—Saint Damien since last Saturday—in the Holt Gallery.
continue reading "Saint Damien as a young, dashing priest"
“Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” has been incredibly gratifying for Academy staff. Putting the exhibition together was a big team effort, and the curatorial departments—Asian Art, Education and European and American Art—collaborated and tried new things. But best of all, it’s a show that is completely from the permanent collection. We don’t need to bring in mummies or Monets from other museums to mount a riveting show. More than 1,300 members came for the special members-only opening reception on Sept. 23. It was so cool to see grown-ups doing the in-gallery activities conceptualized by the Education Department—making prints of “Red Fuji” at the four printing stations, writing haiku, and spinning the woodblocks ingeniously mounted by the Installation Department. And the interest hasn’t died—there is a steady stream of art fans drinking in the views of Mount Fuji every day. Here are scenes from the members’ opening. Photos by Shuzo Uemoto.
For Shawn Eichman, Curator of Asian Art at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, two of the most interesting works in the current exhibition “Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” are not by Hokusai. Find out why he’s so intrigued by Tomioka Tessai’s two fan paintings in this podcast.
This is the first in a series of podcasts about works in “Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji,” on view through Jan. 3, 2010.
On Sept 23, Director Stephen Little gave a tour of Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji for staff. From curators to docents, everyone got the inside info on the works in this exhibition. Here we’re looking at a very rare map of Mount Fuji, which was meant to be punched out and assembled as a 3D model. It is one of the gems culled from the Richard Lane Collection. Photo by Shuzo Uemoto.
Today is Museum Day, organized by Smithsonian Magazine, and people have been taking advantage of their free passes. So far more than 250 people have come with their print outs. Thanks everyone! So much is going on—there are a lot of ways to be part of the art at the Academy these days.
This is Nelson, who studies Japanese, in the exhibition “Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.” He’s carefully crafting a haiku—in kanji! He explained that one of the lines refers to Buddha Amida. What an extraordinary young man. Once he’s done, his haiku will be placed in a scroll that is part of the exhibition. Anyone can come and contemplate the woodblock prints and write a haiku about what they experience.
continue reading "Super Saturday! Action in ‘Hokusai’s Summit’ and Artist in Residence studio"
Six works from the Academy have followed in the footsteps of President Barack Obama. In February, Sen. Daniel Inouye visited the Academy, looking for some visual aloha to take to Washington, D.C. After touring the Holt Gallery and vaults with Director Stephen Little, the eight-term senator selected the paintings (five from the collection and one on loan), which were just installed in the Appropriations Committee conference room at the Capitol.
The works are: David Howard Hitchcock’s “Lawai. Kauai,” “Outrigger on the Beach” and “McInerney’s First Store”; Lionel Walden’s “Marine and Cliffs” and “The Torchlight Fishermen, Waikiki” (pictured above); and “Boys’ Day” by Shirley Russell. They’ll remain in the Capitol for two years. “It’s a unique loan for the Academy,” says Curator of European and American Art Theresa Papanikolas. “We’ve never done it before, and it’s an honor.”
Registrar Pauline Sugino just got back from accompanying the works to the capital—see her posts below.
In an incredible case of art kismet, Honolulu has two simultaneous exhibitions up examining war—Francisco Goya’s 19th-century etching series “The Disasters of War” (pictured below) at the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the contemporary woodcut series “The Depravities of War” (pictured above) by Los Angeles artist Sandow Birk at KCC’s Koa Gallery. Both artists comment on the atrocities of armed conflict of their time—and seeing both shows make it clear that not a whole hell of a lot has changed in almost 200 years. It is an amazing opportunity for us to be able to compare and contrast the two.
continue reading "The art of war: Goya and Birk"
Museums across the country, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, are delving into their permanent collections for exhibitions, rather than bringing in expensive productions. All museums are facing hard times, and mining the vaults saves money. It also is a great way for the public to see treasures that are not normally on display. The New York Times wrote a whole article about it. The Academy is no exception. Theresa Papanikolas, our curator of European and American Art who joined the Academy last fall, has been doing “vault archeology” for the exhibition “From Whistler to Warhol: Modernism on Paper” that will open next spring. Her research, she reports, has given her a chance to mine our stellar collection of 19th- and 20th-century prints and drawings.
She has discovered that the Academy has an entire drawer full of Picassos. As well as a beautiful print by Sonia Delaunay, wife of Robert, whose ‘Rainbow’ (1913) is on the cover of the Academy’s “Selected Works” catalogue.
“But my favorite discovery,” said Papanikolas, whose specialty is Surrealism and Dada (her latest book is Doctrinal Nourishment: Art and Anarchism in the Time of James Ensor), “has been a cache of Surrealist prints, including work by Salvador Dali, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Stanley William Hayter, André Masson, and Joan Miró!”
As she goes through the drawers of the print vault, Papanikolas organizes work into sections (Cubism, German Expressionism, Pop Art, etc.). “That helps me to narrow down what to include based on what will work visually.”
Just went to see the Charles Bartlett works in the Jhamandas Watumull Gallery. I love his prints and drawings—he’s like Beatrix Potter for grown ups. The works are just so damn charming, with their precise lines and seductive colors. Asian Art Curator Shawn Eichman’s juxtapositioning of the Englishman’s renderings of the Indian scenes with a dancing Krishna and the rest of our Indian art collection is brilliant. It’s total “Passage to India” through art—an Englishman in the land of nirvana. This 17-century lingam cover seems to be staring right at Bartlett’s print of the Taj Mahal.