Makiki museum to auction works

Advertiser Staff

"Woman with Ukulele" by Madge Tennent will go on the block. Contemporary Museum photo Contemporary Museum deaccession auction 10 a.m. Saturday McClain Auctions, 825 Halekauwila St. Inspection: noon-6 p.m. Friday, 8-10 a.m. Saturday 538-7227 Contemporary Museum: 237-5220

Items being sold off have been deaccessioned from the museum's collection.

"Deaccession" refers to the removal and sale of art from a museum's collection.

"This auction represents an important opportunity for Hawai'i collectors to purchase works by a wide range of Island artists," said James Jensen, the art museum's associate director and chief curator.

The highlight of the auction is a major oil painting by Madge Tennent, "Woman with Ukulele."

"It is a significant work by the artist," Jensen said in a written statement, "but research indicates that the undated painting was most likely done in the mid-1930s, putting it outside the museum's mission of collecting works from 1940 to the present."

Similar major paintings by Tennent are on permanent view at the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Hawai'i State Art Museum, as well as at the Hawai'i State Library and the Tennent Art Gallery in Honolulu.

Works from the museum's collection in the auction also include some by well-known Hawai'i artists such as Satoru Abe, Tadashi Sato, Bumpei Akaji, Jean Charlot and John Young, as well as many other artists active in Hawai'i from the 1940s to the 1970s.

The auction also includes a large number of works donated to the museum by Persis Corp. to sell. Most of these works were acquired from exhibitions at The Honolulu Advertiser Gallery when Persis owned the newspaper and the News Building.

In addition, works by the late Hawai'i artist Winifred Hudson (1905-1996) have been donated from her estate to the museum by the artist's family in California to raise money to acquire works by contemporary Hawai'i artists. Hudson works include paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints from all periods of her career.

Another work in the auction is a fresco panel by Charlot that depicts Mrs. Elisha Loomis, an early missionary in Hawai'i.

The fresco is a fragment from a large composition that Charlot created in 1951 in the Waikiki branch of First Hawaiian Bank.

In 1966, during building renovations, the fresco was cut into 23 sections that were removed and sold.

A second version of the fresco was created by Charlot in 1966 and remains on view in the present Waikiki bank office.

The museum has another fragment from the 1951 fresco, depicting Capt. James Cook, which it is retaining.

This is the second deaccession process and auction for the museum. The first was in 1996.

Proceeds from the sale of deaccessioned works will be used to purchase other works for the museum's collection.

Use of proceeds from works donated to the museum for resale will be unrestricted.