CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
The Bishop Museum opened a new picture gallery yesterday and brought out archived content. This is a detail of "Death of Captain Cook," done in 1783 by George Carter.
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Visions of the past
Art collector and consultant Michael Horikawa has long believed that everyone should have an opportunity to see and appreciate the paintings and sketches hidden for decades in back rooms of the Bishop Museum. About three years ago, leaders at the museum finally called him and said, "We have a project for you," recalled Horikawa.
Paintings revealed
Bishop Museum Picture Gallery and Atrium Lobby
» On view daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Christmas
» For more information, call 847-3511 or visit www.bishopmuseum.org
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In what could be considered a new direction for the Bishop Museum, curators unveiled the Picture Gallery yesterday as part of a massive $21 million renovation of Hawaiian Hall. Now visitors can enjoy rarely seen visual art of Hawaii and the Pacific -- particularly oil paintings from the 18th and early 19th centuries. Under Horikawa's guidance -- and with his connections to framing experts associated with the Smithsonian Institution and the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- many works have been cleaned, refurbished and framed for exhibition. The rest of Hawaiian Hall will reopen in June 2009.
In an effort to re-create the original 1891 Victorian salon picture gallery, Horikawa and DeSoto Brown, the collection manager of Bishop Museum's archives, selected a wide cross section for public display. While certain core pieces will remain in the gallery permanently, DeSoto and Horikawa plan to rotate areas of the exhibit every six months. Items in the glass case on one side of the room might change even more frequently "because we've got so many wonderful things to choose from," said Brown. Currently, these include a 1901 deck of playing cards depicting monarchs, buildings and scenes from Hawaii, as well as the Punahou School Number from March 1924.
"It's a continuing project because there's so much work," said Horikawa, who sits on the board of directors of the Honolulu Academy of Arts and volunteers his time with the Bishop Museum. "Like most institutions, we can show only 20 percent of what we have at any given time."
Just how many pieces does the Bishop Museum possess? Approximately 250 oil paintings and 4,000 works of art on paper.
"Most people didn't know we had such an extensive collection of oils," said Brown, "but that's because we never had a place to show it."
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
The exhibit features albums of old photos one can leaf through. The middle photo is of King Kalakaua.
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Of particular interest is an original 1790 sketch by John Webber titled "Woman of the Sandwich Islands." Webber was the official artist commissioned for Capt. James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific and became one of the first foreigners to document the lives and people of Hawaii visually and artistically. Horikawa said the museum possesses 12 Webber originals, an indication of the caliber and rarity of the collection.
Horikawa also pointed out the extraordinary condition of the paintings -- some of which are more than 220 years old. And there is something fresh at every turn. A non-Hawaiian landscape seems out of place in the collection, until one learns that Princess Kaiulani painted it at age 16. Two photo albums full of historic pictures sit on antique tables for guests to peruse.
When it opened in 1891, the picture gallery was one of three display areas in the museum. The gallery closed in 1936 and was used as storage until it became a monarchy room with two thrones in the mid-1900s. Recently redesigned to echo the appearance of the original gallery, with the appropriate muted lighting and climate control necessary to preserve valuable works of art, the room is a world away from the Hall of Natural History it became in the 1970s.
Brown said he is particularly proud of the elegant setting. It provides an opportunity for "people to see things they couldn't see before." Even though he has worked at the museum for 20 years, he admitted that the carefully orchestrated display changes everything. "I knew they were beautiful pictures," he said, "but my appreciation has increased tremendously."
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Volunteer Michael Horikawa has worked for more than two years on the exhibit.
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