Reviving old Hawaii

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The desire to be remembered seems an inherent part of being human. When Napoleon's soldiers scratched the French equivalent of "Kilroy Was Here" into the ancient ruins of Egypt in 1798, they left their names alongside similar messages placed there by Greek hoplites and Roman legionaries almost 2,000 years before them.

Matteo Sandona "Matteo Sandona and Hawaii: A Capital Ambition": » On view: Through Feb. 24 » Place: Honolulu Academy of Arts » Hours: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays » Admission: $10; $5 students, military and ages 62 and older; free to academy members and children » Call: 532-8700 or 532-8701, or visit www.honoluluacademy.org

The lives of heroes and villains have been immortalized over the centuries in poetry and prose, but for most of that time only the wealthy had their faces immortalized as well. That changed quickly when cameras became consumer goods, and nowadays even those who affect contempt for the wealthy of olden times are quick to record the fact of their own existence with digital cameras and cell phones.

With all those elements in play, the Honolulu Academy of Arts' retrospective on the artist Matteo Sandona is a welcome look at residents of Hawaii as captured through the eyes and imagination of an accomplished "modernist" painter of the early 20th century. Think John Singer Sargent or James McNeill Whistler; Sandona is of that school.

Sandona was living in San Francisco when he came to Honolulu in 1903 for six commissions by the Campbell and Kawananakoa families. Since much of his work from this period was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake (and fire) of 1906, these portraits are as significant for their survival as for their content.

Sandona's magnificent full-length portrait of Abigail Campbell Kawananakoa dominates the collection, but portraits of children from later visits - Walter and Muriel Macfarlane, Theodora Drew and Charles M. Cooke II among them - touch the heart. An informal work in black chalk captures the vivacious spirit of "infante" Kapi'olani Kawananakoa beautifully.

The exhibit also includes a generic tropical landscape, significant as the only Sandona landscape currently known, and two fantasy pieces that reflect the ever-popular dream of pre-Missionary Hawaii.

All artists view the world through the eye of their imagination, then emphasize aspects they find interesting. Was Sanford Dole the dark and haughty man seen in Sandona's portrait? Given Dole's complicity in the overthrow of the Hawaiian government, and his role as president of a regime that stripped native Hawaiians of their political rights, he might well have been. Was Anna Rice Cooke a strong but kindly woman? Given her generosity in founding the art academy, we may safely assume so.

The exhibit resonates on a deeper level for anyone who knew any of Sandona's subjects. I remember Muriel Macfarlane Flanders as a gracious lady in her 90s. How wonderful to see her as Sandona did in 1912!

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