Brushstrokes and Beneath the Banyan: Modern Art, Hula Revival, and Barkcloth Resurgence
The mid-20th century in Hawaiʻi witnessed two interlocking artistic renaissances; Hawaiian Modernism among painters and sculptors, and the Hula Renaissance among practitioners of traditional dance and its attendant visual arts. Though their media and methods differed, both movements shared a commitment to fusing indigenous Hawaiian identity with broader aesthetic currents, reclaiming suppressed traditions while engaging international discourses.
Hawaiian Modernism emerged in the aftermath of World War II, when returning G.I.s and visiting curators brought New York’s Abstract Expressionism to the islands. Between 1950 and 1960, the Honolulu Academy of Arts mounted touring exhibitions of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko, catalyzing local artists to experiment with large canvases and gestural brushwork (Oxford Research Encyclopedia). At the same time, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, expanding under the G.I. Bill, provided studio spaces and faculty courses that encouraged a “Tropical Modernism”; one that acknowledged Polynesian climate and forms as valid modernist subjects (UH SOA Gallery).
In 1954, seven Asian-American artists (Satoru Abe, Tadashi Sato, Isami Doi, Tetsuo “Bob” Ochikubo, Jerry T. Okimoto, Bumpei Akaji, and Edmund Chung) formed the Metcalf Chateau, named for the modest house on Metcalf Street that hosted their first show. Institutional support, notably from Honolulu Academy director Robert Griffin, led to their inaugural museum exhibition, forging a crucible in which abstraction and Hawaiian motifs coalesced (Wikipedia). Satoru Abe’s 1950s copper “branch” sculptures evoked endemic flora and the spiritual concept of mana, while his retrospective Reaching for the Sun (2024–25) at the Honolulu Museum of Art traced his evolution into paintings textured with volcanic ash and tapa-inspired patterns (Honolulu Museum of Art). Tadashi Sato’s 1969 Aquarius mosaic in the Hawaiʻi State Capitol translated ocean currents into concentric glass tesserae, marrying Italian mosaic technique with Pacific iconography (Public Art Archive). His oil painting Submerged Rocks (1963) layered glazes to suggest both sumi-e and color-field abstraction. Isami Doi’s late canvases fused petroglyph symbols and woven-pattern geometries into modernist vocabularies (First Friday Hawai‘i). Tetsuo Ochikubo balanced calligraphic brushwork, echoing his service in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, with Abstract Expressionist energy (Vallarino Fine Art). Jerry Okimoto’s hard-edge panels recalled kapa-cloth layouts, and Bumpei Akaji’s welded steel sculptures incorporated fishhook and ulu motifs to sacralize everyday forms (Wikipedia). Ceramicist Toshiko Takaezu and painter Madge Tennent further broadened the scope: Takaezu’s closed vessels, gesturally glazed to echo volcanic textures, achieved international acclaim, while Tennent’s earlier heroic depictions of the Hawaiian form paved the way for indigenous subject matter in modernist painting (Toshiko Takaezu Foundation; Isaacs Art Center).
Concurrently, the Hula Renaissance of the 1970s reasserted hula, both ancient kahiko and modern ‘auana, as a living archive of genealogy (mo‘olelo) and cosmology. Christian missionaries and later state bans had driven kahiko underground or into tourist-friendly caricatures, but by the late 1960s, protests against Kaho‘olawe bombing and the Hawaiian sovereignty movement set the stage for a cultural rebirth (Ballard Brief). In 1971, Dottie Thompson redirected the Merrie Monarch Festival toward authentic kahiko, enforcing protocols of chant, ipū and pū‘ili, and later broadened ‘auana categories to include ukulele and steel guitar (Condé Nast Traveler). By the mid-1970s, kahiko entries outnumbered ‘auana, reflecting community-wide reinvestment in tradition. Kumu Hula such as Edith Kanaka‘ole and Margaret Maiki Aiu Lake, respectively known as “high priestess of ancient hula” and “Mother of the Hawaiian Renaissance”, transmitted choreographies and chant through newly founded hālau, transforming hula into embodied resistance rather than tourist spectacle (National Endowment for the Arts).
This revival extended into visual and material arts. Artisans resurrected kapa-cloth making, beating wauke bark into fabric and dyeing it with native plants like ‘ōhi‘a lehua, for pa‘u skirts and belts, reconnecting performers to ancestral textile lineages (National Park Service). Featherwork too reemerged: ‘ahu‘ula (feather cloaks) and lei hulu were reconstructed by practitioners such as Samuel Kamakau Fai‘ala, reviving chiefly symbols once thought lost. Community murals and quilts, created in collaboration with hālau, depicted voyaging canoes (wa‘a), deities (akua), and chant verses, turning school walls and communal halls into sacred extensions of hula’s narrative landscape (Hawaiʻi Journal of History).
Both movements achieved institutional validation: the 2017–18 exhibition Abstract Expressionism: Looking East From the Far West at the Honolulu Museum of Art reframed Hawaiʻi’s Modernists alongside Pollock and Rothko, while the Merrie Monarch Festival, by the 1980s, had become an international event broadcast live to diasporic Hawaiians, setting rigorous authenticity standards (Honolulu Magazine; Condé Nast Traveler). The Polynesian Voyaging Society’s 1976–78 Hōkūle‘a expedition inspired new hula choreographies that embodied star paths and ocean swells, deepening the symbiosis of art and voyaging (Hōkūle‘a Voyaging Society).
Mid-century Hawaiian Modernism and the subsequent Hula Renaissance reveal a shared impulse to reclaim and recontextualize indigenous identity through both avant-garde and traditional forms. Sculptures, mosaics, ceramics, and paintings channeled spiritual and geological forces, while hula, kapa, and featherwork brought ancestral protocols into the present. Together, these interwoven movements forged an art landscape inseparable from island sovereignty, one whose legacy endures in Hawaiʻi’s vibrant contemporary scene.
References:
Abstract Expressionism, Looking East From the Far West. Honolulu Museum of Art, 2017, honolulumuseum.org/exhibitions/abstract-expressionism-looking-east-from-the-far-west.
Aquarius in Honolulu, HI. Public Art Archive, publicartarchive.org/art/Aquarius/9bd7248c.
Ballard Brief. Struggle for Hawaiian Cultural Survival. Ballard Brief – BYU, ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/struggle-for-hawaiian-cultural-survival.
Condé Nast Traveler. Secrets of the Dance. 15 Oct. 2007, www.cntraveler.com/stories/2007-10-15/secrets-of-the-dance.
Hawaii’s Merrie Monarch Festival Is the Ultimate Hula Celebration. 2016, www.cntraveler.com/story/hawaiis-merrie-monarch-festival-is-the-ultimate-hula-celebration.
Demystifying Hula: Origins, Myths, and Facts. Hawaii Activities Guide, www.hawaiiactivities.com/travelguide/hula-origins-myths-facts/.
First Friday Hawai‘i. Tadashi Sato’s Aquarius Mosaic. firstfridayhawaii.com.
Honolulu Magazine. This New Art Exhibit Is Rewriting the History of Abstract Expressionism. 2017.
Honolulu Museum of Art. Reaching for the Sun: Satoru Abe. honolulumuseum.org/pQA8WhW/satoru-abe--reaching-for-the-sun.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Hawaiian Modernism.
Public Art Archive. Aquarius in Honolulu, HI.
Smithsonian American Art Museum. Satoru Abe. americanart.si.edu/artist/satoru-abe-32161.
Toshiko Takaezu Foundation. About Toshiko. www.toshikotakaezufoundation.org/about-toshiko.
UH SOA Gallery. Tropical Modernism at Mānoa. soa.hawaii.edu/gallery/tropical-modernism.
University of Hawaiʻi Press. Holt, John Dominis IV. On Being Hawaiian. 1964.
Wikipedia. Metcalf Chateau. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_Chateau.
Wikipedia. Tetsuo Ochikubo. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsuo_Ochikubo.