Since 1927 · Hawaii'i, Asia, Pacific and world arts

Founded to serve Hawaii's multicultural community, the Honolulu Museum of Art connects five millennia of Asian, Pacific, American and European creation.

The Honolulu Museum of Art was born from the vision of Anna Rice Cooke, a collector and educator convinced that art must be accessible to the cultural diversity of Hawaii. The institution was incorporated in 1922 under the name Honolulu Academy of Arts and opened to the public on April 8, 1927 with approximately eight hundred and seventy-five works. Its collection today exceeds fifty-five thousand pieces covering five millennia. It is particularly rich in Asian and Asian arts Pacific, American and European paintings and decorative arts, Japanese prints, textiles, works on paper, photography and traditional creations from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. The integration of The Contemporary Museum into 2011 strengthened modern and contemporary art while restoring the establishment to its original name. The works selected here tell several paths of Western modernity within this encyclopedic collection. Monet dissolves the depth in the reflections of the Water Lilies Basin. Van Gogh transforms a wheat field and its sheaves into rhythmic material. Matisse brings together portrait, flowers and decor in Annelies, white tulips and anemones. Pissarro observes finally the Louvre under the cold light of a winter morning. In Honolulu, these European paintings dialogue with other traditions of surface, color and representation from across the Pacific. The "Honolulu" selection Museum of Art notably compares The Water Lilies Basin and Wheat Field with Sheaves. His reading favors space.

In Honolulu, the history of art is built at the crossroads of islands and continents: each gallery reminds us that forms travel with people.