Honolulu Museum of Art - History

History

Anna Rice Cooke (1853–1934), daughter of New England missionaries and founder of the Honolulu Museum of Art, in her dedication statement at the opening of the museum on April 8, 1927 said:

"That our children of many nationalities and races, born far from the centers of art, may receive an intimation of their own cultural legacy and wake to the ideals embodied in the arts of their neighbors ... that Hawaiians, Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Northern Europeans and all other people living here, contacting through the channel of art those deep intuitions common to all, may perceive a foundation on which a new culture, enriched by the old strains may be built in the islands." —Anna Rice Cooke

Born on Oʻahu in 1853, Cooke grew up on Kauaʻi island in a home that appreciated the arts. In 1874, she married Charles Montague Cooke and the two eventually settled in Honolulu. In 1882, they built a home on Beretania Street, across from Thomas Square. As Cooke's career prospered, they gathered their private art collection. First were "parlor pieces" for their home. She frequented the shop of furniture maker Yeun Kwock Fong Inn who often had ceramics and textile pieces sent from his brother in China.

The Cookes’ art collection outgrew their home and the homes of their children. In 1920, she and her daughter Alice (Mrs. Phillip Spalding), her daughter-in-law Dagmar (Mrs. Richard Cooke), and Catharine E. B. Cox (Mrs. Isaac Cox), an art and drama teacher, began to catalogue and research the collection with the intent to display the items in a museum. With little formal training, these women obtained a charter for the museum from the Territory of Hawaii in 1922, while continuing to catalogue the collection. Cooke wanted a museum that reflected Hawaiʻi's multi-cultural make-up. Not bound by the traditional western idea of art museums, she also wanted to showcase the island's climate in an open and airy environment, using courtyards which interconnect the galleries throughout the Museum.

The Cookes donated their Beretania Street land along with an endowment of $25,000. Their home was torn down to make way for the museum. New York architect Bertram Goodhue designed a classic Hawaiian-style building with simple off-white exteriors and tiled roofs. Goodhue died before the project was completed; it was finished by Hardie Phillip. This style has been imitated in many buildings throughout the state.

On April 8, 1927, the Honolulu Museum of Art opened. There was a traditional Hawaiian blessing and the Royal Hawaiian Band, under the direction of Henri Berger, played at festivities. With the opening of the museum came gifts of many pieces, sometimes even entire collections. Additions to the original building include a library (1956), an education wing (1960), a gift shop (1965), a cafe (1969), a contemporary gallery, administrative offices and 292-seat theater (1977), and an art center for studio classes and expanded educational programming (1989). In 1999, the Museum created a children's interactive gallery, lecture hall, and offices.

The original building was named Hawaiʻi's best building by the Hawaiʻi Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture and is registered as a National and State Historical site. The Museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums.

In 1998, extensive renovation began starting with the Asian wing. In September 1999, construction began on the John Hara-designed Henry R. Luce Pavilion Complex, which opened May 13, 2001. It includes expanded spaces for The Pavilion Café and The Museum Shop and a new two-story exhibition structure. The Luce Complex is named for Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor of Time Magazine and other publications. His widow, Clare Boothe Luce, had a residence in Hawaiʻi and served on the Museum's board of trustees from 1972–1977.

New galleries exploring cross-cultural influences, were renovated and re-opened in the Western Wing in November 1999. A new gallery for Korean art was opened in June 2001. New galleries for the arts of India, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia were renovated and opened in January 2002. A new gallery for the art of the Philippines named for retiring Museum Director and his wife, George and Nancy Ellis, opened in 2003. In February 2005, the Museum opened an Asian Painting Conservation Studio and in December 2005, completed renovation of the Western Art galleries.

In 2001, the Museum entered into a partnership with the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art and the theater was refurbished and renamed for her in July 2002. In October 2002, the Museum opened a new gallery that serves as the orientation center for all tours to Doris Duke's Honolulu estate Shangri La, which started on November 6, 2002.

The Museum's permanent collection grew to over 38,000 pieces with significant holdings in Asian art, American and European painting and decorative arts, 19th and 20th century art, an extensive collection of works on paper, Asian textiles, and traditional works from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. The directors of the Honolulu Museum of Art have been Frank Montague Moore (1924–1927), Mrs. Isaac M. Cox (1927–1928), Mrs. Livingston Jenks (1929–1935), Edgar C. Schenck (1935–1947), Robert P. Griffing, Jr. (1947–1963), James W. Foster (1963–1982), George R. Ellis (1982–2003), Stephen Little (2003–2010), and Stephan Jost (2011–present).