OUR HONOLULU
Academy benefactor a legend

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

One thing is missing from the 75th birthday party of the Honolulu Academy of Arts this year. It's a gray-haired woman in a wheelchair at the front door.

On opening day in 1927, she sat there shaking hands as if she was inviting people into her home. Which, in a way, she was. Because Mrs. Anna Rice Cooke had bankrolled the building and contributed much of the art.

It wasn't just any wheelchair, either, but a hand-carved Ming dynasty piece adapted for mobility by Yuen Kwock Fong, the furniture-maker in Chinatown who advised her on Asian art collecting.

"She kept acquiring things until she ran out of space, not only in her own home but those of her children and friends," said Charlie Aldinger, the academy publicity director, who has been boning up on the history. "The academy started with about 5,000 of her own pieces."

It was archivist Mary Ann Akao who unearthed an old photograph with a note on the back: "The sweet old woman at the door is Mrs. Cooke on opening day, with her oldest son beside her, receiving as if she were giving a party for all the people and was there to greet them in person. In each of the other rooms, one of her children was host."

The Ming dynasty chair converted to wheels is now in the academy collection as an art object. It has to be the only one of its kind. So was Mrs. Cooke.

"Sweet old lady" is one description but it doesn't explain everything. Archivist Akao also found the royal patent signed by Kalakaua for the land on which the academy was built. It's dated March 5, 1880, and the land is in the ownership of Mrs. Anna R. Cooke.

This was in the days when all property was in the husband's name. Which explains the parenthetical phrase written in a faint hand ("with the permission of her husband.)" It's the land on which they built their home and, later, the academy.

Obviously, even in those days, some women were equal partners. Mrs. Cooke again exhibited the ability to make up her own mind when the acquisition committee of the academy was considering the purchase of an El Greco in 1931.

Probably to their dismay, Mrs. Cooke chose the work of a disreputable French bohemian who had gone native in Tahiti: Gauguin. What was worse, he painted nudes.

Academy director George R. Ellis conceded that Mrs. Cooke's choice of Gauguin at that time might be considered unorthodox.

"His fame grew after the second World War," Ellis explained. "He was not well known at the time." The Gauguin is now one of the academy's most valuable pieces.

In any case, Mrs. Cooke has succeeded in transferring her love of art to the people of Our Honolulu.

Abundio Cabe is an immigrant from the Philippines.

Since he started hanging pictures at the academy, he's collected prints by May Moir, Joseph Feher and James Koga for himself.

Bob Krauss can be reached at 525-8073.