The Hawaii Pictures: Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keefe, Honolulu Museum of Art Exhibition

Excerpt from Honolulu Museum of Art webpage:
https://www.honolulumuseum.org/art/exhibitions/13245-georgia_okeeffe_and_ansel_adams_hawaii_pictures

“Both artists wanted to unmask what lay beyond the beaches of Waikiki,” says Theresa Papanikolas, the museum’s curator of European and American art, and curator of the exhibition. “O’Keeffe went beyond prevailing stereotypes and pictured Hawai‘i in terms of her own authentic and deeply personal response to its natural beauty. Meanwhile, the work that Adams did in the island reflected and augmented his broader aim to exploit the capacity of modern photography to reveal the essence of a given subject and, in doing so, make America’s celebrated spaces immediately identifiable and accessible.”

The exhibition includes a selection of painting associated with O’Keeffe’s 1939 trip to Hawai‘i to create illustrations for print advertisements for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now the Dole Company). During her two-month stay, O’Keeffe visited O‘ahu, Maui, Kaua‘i, and Hawai‘i Island, painting dramatic coastlines, volcanic terrain, traditional tools, and exotic flora.

Adams’s photographs of Hawai‘i were also the result of a commission. He first visited the islands in 1948 to take photographs for a series on national parks for the Department of the Interior, and returned in 1957 for a commemorative publication for Bishop National Bank of Hawai‘i (now First Hawaiian Bank).