Honolulu Museum of Art (Hawaii, USA)

The Honolulu Museum of Art is an art museum, teaching institution, research resource, and cultural gathering place in central Honolulu. Its galleries bring together art from Hawaiʻi, the wider Pacific, Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas, while the surrounding campus supports studio instruction, film screenings, library research, school programs, and public events. The museum remains active at its South Beretania Street location under the abbreviated name HoMA.^[Ref-1]

From the Honolulu Academy of Arts to HoMA

Anna Rice Cooke began assembling art in a home shared with her husband, Charles Montague Cooke. By the early 1920s, the growing collection had moved beyond the practical limits of a private residence. Cooke and several women closely involved in local art education pursued a permanent institution that could serve Hawaiʻi’s culturally varied population rather than operate solely as a private collection.

The Territory of Hawaiʻi granted the institution a charter in 1922. Cooke donated the family’s Beretania Street land and supplied an initial endowment of $25,000. The residence was removed to make way for a purpose-built museum, which opened in 1927 as the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

1. 1922: The Territory of Hawaiʻi chartered the museum organization.
2. 1927: The Honolulu Academy of Arts opened to the public with approximately 875 works.
3. 1931–1961: Education wings and an enlarged library extended the original building’s teaching and research roles.
4. 1977: A contemporary gallery, administrative offices, and a theatre were added.
5. 1990: The museum opened an art school for studio instruction and expanded educational programming.
6. 2001: A new wing provided space for the shop, café, and galleries devoted to historic and contemporary art of Hawaiʻi.
7. 2011: The Contemporary Museum transferred its collection and assets to the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
8. 2012: The combined institution adopted the name Honolulu Museum of Art.
9. 2023: HoMA sold Spalding House, the former Makiki Heights home of The Contemporary Museum.
10. 2026: David Odo was appointed as HoMA’s next Director and CEO, with his term scheduled to begin September 1 as the museum prepares for its centennial in 2027.^[Ref-12]

The 2011 transfer from The Contemporary Museum broadened HoMA’s modern and contemporary holdings and brought institutional records from both The Contemporary Museum and Spalding House into its archives. Spalding House no longer operates as a HoMA museum location; current public activity centers on the Beretania Street museum and the nearby Art School.^[Ref-3]

A Collection Shaped for Hawaiʻi’s Multicultural Public

Cooke intended the museum to help children and adults in Hawaiʻi encounter both their own cultural inheritance and the artistic traditions of their neighbors. That purpose explains why the collection was never limited to European painting or American art. East Asian works occupied an important place from the opening years because Chinese, Japanese, and Korean communities were already part of the islands’ social and cultural life.

The permanent collection has since grown to approximately 55,000 works. Its departments cover ancient art, Africa, Pan-Asia, Hawaiʻi and the Pacific, the Americas and Europe, decorative arts, modern and contemporary art, photography, works on paper, textiles, and Japanese woodblock prints. These categories include paintings, sculpture, ceramics, furniture, religious objects, printed books, costumes, fiber works, photographs, drawings, and mixed-media installations.^[Ref-4]

Chinese Sculpture, Korean Screens, and Art Across Asia

HoMA’s Pan-Asian department contains around 23,600 objects spanning nearly 6,000 years. Early collecting centered on East Asia, later expanding to India, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines. The department therefore documents several religious traditions, court cultures, workshop systems, trading networks, and forms of domestic artistic production rather than presenting Asia as a single artistic region.

Among the published collection examples are an eleventh-century wooden image of Guanyin from China’s Northern Song dynasty, a monumental nineteenth-century polychrome Nandi head from southern India, and a thirteenth-century sandstone representation of Prajnaparamita from Cambodia. Korean holdings include painted folding screens and Goryeo-period celadon, while ceramics from the Ottoman Empire demonstrate that the department’s geographic coverage reaches beyond East and Southeast Asia.^[Ref-5]

The Japanese Woodblock Print Collection

More than 12,400 Japanese woodblock prints make this one of HoMA’s most clearly defined collecting strengths. The holdings extend from fifteenth-century Buddhist printing to contemporary printmaking, although Edo-period ukiyo-e prints and illustrated books form the largest concentration.

The James A. Michener Collection, given to the museum through a series of gifts between 1950 and 1991, added depth in artists such as Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige. HoMA also preserves later shin hanga and sōsaku hanga works by artists including Kawase Hasui, Hashiguchi Goyō, Onchi Kōshirō, Saitō Kiyoshi, and Hiratsuka Un’ichi. Because works on paper are light-sensitive, the presence of an object in the permanent collection does not mean it remains on continuous display.^[Ref-6]

Hawaiʻi, Europe, the Americas, and Contemporary Art

The art of the Americas and Europe department contains more than 18,700 objects across painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and works on paper. Published strengths include Italian Renaissance art, French and American Impressionism, and twentieth-century abstraction. Artists represented in the museum’s records include Mary Cassatt, Claude Monet, James McNeill Whistler, Diego Rivera, Henri Matisse, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacob Lawrence, Faith Ringgold, Toshiko Takaezu, and Jean Charlot.

HoMA’s modern and contemporary holdings number roughly 13,500 works and extend from the early twentieth century to current practice. American modernism and postwar art sit alongside work by artists closely connected to Hawaiʻi, including Satoru Abe, Isami Doi, Kapulani Landgraf, Tadashi Sato, Toshiko Takaezu, and Masami Teraoka. The 2011 transfer from The Contemporary Museum added sculpture, painting, photography, and mixed-media work that had been collected through a separate Honolulu institution.^[Ref-7]

Paper, Photography, and Textiles

The works on paper collection includes approximately 16,350 drawings, prints, watercolors, collages, and mixed-media objects made across more than five centuries. Its European and American material ranges from Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Francisco Goya to Mary Cassatt, Pablo Picasso, Kara Walker, Agnes Martin, and Andy Warhol. A separate photography group contains more than 1,600 works by photographers such as Man Ray, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Diane Arbus, Catherine Opie, and Thomas Struth.

About 6,000 textiles broaden the museum’s material record through costume, fragments, furnishings, personal accessories, fiber art, ceremonial objects, lace, jewelry, and textile-making tools. Most date from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with strong Asian representation. Hawaiian holdings include quilts, featherwork, kapa, and aloha wear, while Japanese kimono and Chinese court garments connect the textile department to other Asian collections.^[Ref-8]

Courtyards, Galleries, and an Adapted Island Museum

The museum’s physical plan differs from the sealed, monumental gallery blocks associated with many mainland art museums. Galleries surround open-air courtyards, and covered passages connect interior rooms with planted outdoor spaces. Hawaiian, Chinese, and Spanish architectural references appear in roofs, screens, tiles, masonry details, and courtyard arrangements.

Bertram Goodhue prepared the original plans, but his colleague Hardie Phillip completed the building after Goodhue died. Later additions responded to new institutional needs rather than replacing the courtyard plan. Education rooms, the library, the theatre, administrative offices, the café, the shop, and galleries for the arts of Hawaiʻi were added in stages.

This architecture affects how the collection is encountered. Visitors repeatedly move between enclosed galleries and shaded courtyards, while ramps and elevators connect the museum’s three public levels. The campus therefore functions as a group of linked cultural spaces rather than a single uninterrupted exhibition hall.

Library Research, Archives, and the Online Collection

The Robert Allerton Art Library holds more than 40,000 books and periodicals concerning artists, art movements, and subjects represented in the museum. It is a non-circulating research library, so materials are consulted on site rather than borrowed for home use. The reading room is entered through Gallery 7.

HoMA’s archives preserve the museum’s institutional records, professional papers created by staff and trustees, and surviving records of The Contemporary Museum and Spalding House. Archival materials require an appointment. Researchers benefit from submitting names, approximate dates, departments, exhibition titles, or collection references when requesting material.

The museum also maintains a searchable collection database. Catalog entries may include creators, titles, dates, materials, dimensions, acquisition histories, and object numbers, although the depth of information and availability of digital images vary by record. Museum newsletters and magazines dating from 1928 to 2017 are available through the University of Hawaiʻi’s digital repository.^[Ref-9]

Art Education Beyond the Galleries

Education was part of the museum’s purpose before the present Art School building opened. Today, studio classes connect direct art-making with the study of objects in the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions. Subjects offered through the school can include drawing, painting, ceramics, printmaking, fiber arts, metals, jewelry, and mixed media, with separate programs for children, teenagers, and adults.

The Lending Collection extends the museum’s teaching role beyond its buildings. Educators across Hawaiʻi may borrow curated groups of art objects and artifacts for supervised, object-based classroom study. Examples range from Hawaiian implements to masks, craft objects, textiles, and material culture from other regions. These are teaching materials circulated for educational use, not objects temporarily removed from the permanent exhibition galleries.^[Ref-10]

• School Visits: Gallery tours and art-making activities introduce students to observation, visual analysis, materials, and design.
• Studio Instruction: The Art School provides sustained practical training rather than limiting education to short gallery demonstrations.
• Teacher Support: Educator workshops and the Lending Collection help teachers connect artworks and material culture with classroom subjects.
• Film and Public Programs: The Doris Duke Theatre adds international, independent, archival, and locally connected cinema to the museum’s program.
• Research Use: Students, scholars, artists, teachers, and members of the public can consult the library, archives, publications, and online catalog.

Visiting the Beretania Street Campus

General museum admission covers the galleries and access to the public courtyard areas. The café and shop may be visited without purchasing museum admission. Film screenings, studio courses, private programs, and certain events can require separate registration or tickets.

All public museum areas are wheelchair accessible. Elevators and ramps serve the three floors, accessible restrooms are distributed across the campus, and manual wheelchairs may be requested from visitor-engagement or security staff. Accessible parking and drop-off points are available near the Ward Avenue and Victoria Street entrances. Service animals are permitted, while pets and emotional-support animals are not admitted.^[Ref-11]

An Art Museum Connected to Its Place

HoMA’s broad geographic range is tied to the history of Hawaiʻi rather than assembled as an abstract survey of art. Asian collections reflect communities long established in the islands, while galleries devoted to Hawaiʻi and the Pacific place local artists, Native Hawaiian material, immigrant experiences, and regional exchange within the museum’s wider holdings.

The combination of an encyclopedic collection, Japanese print holdings, Hawaiʻi-centered interpretation, studio education, film programming, classroom loans, and an art research library gives the institution several connected roles. It preserves art from many regions while maintaining the educational purpose for which the Honolulu Academy of Arts was created in the 1920s.