The Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House, formerly The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, was integrated into the

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single co ...

under this name. It was the only museum in the state of

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

devoted exclusively to

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

. The Contemporary Museum had two venues: in residential

Honolulu Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

at the historic

Spalding House Spalding House, also known as the Cooke-Spalding House was an art museum and sculpture garden in Honolulu, Hawaii (now closed). It was called Nuumealani (heavenly terrace) by Anna Rice Cooke, who commissioned it. The house and gardens constitute ...

, and

downtown Honolulu Downtown Honolulu is the current historic, economic, and governmental center of Honolulu, the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. It is bounded by Nuuanu Stream to the west, Ward Avenue to the east, Vineyard Boulevard to the n ...

at First Hawaiian Center. All venues continue to be open to the public.

Collection

Artists represented in the permanent collection included

Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an American performance art, performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His performan ...

Josef Albers Josef Albers ( , , ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born American artist and Visual arts education, educator who is considered one of the most influential 20th-century art teachers in the United States. Born in 1888 in Bottrop, Westp ...

Robert Arneson Robert Carston Arneson (September 4, 1930 – November 2, 1992) was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at University of California, Davis for nearly three decades. Early life and education Robert Carston Arnes ...

, Jennifer Bartlett, Robert Brady, John Buck, Christopher Bucklow, Deborah Butterfield, Enrique Martinez Celaya,

Enrique Chagoya Enrique Chagoya (born 1953) is a Mexican-born American painter, printmaker, and educator. The subject of his artwork is the changing nature of culture. He frequently uses shocking imagery, irony, and Mesoamerican icons to convey his point in his a ...

Dale Chihuly Dale Chihuly ( ; born September 20, 1941) is an American glass artist and entrepreneur. He is well known in the field of Glassblowing, blown glass, "moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture". Early life Dale Patrick Chihuly was born on ...

John Coplans John Rivers Coplans (24 June 1920 – 21 August 2003) was a British artist, art writer, curator, and museum director. A veteran of World War II and a photographer, he emigrated to the United States in 1960 and had many exhibitions in Europe and ...

Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and filmmaker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmma ...

Gregory Crewdson Gregory Crewdson (born September 26, 1962) is an American photographer who makes large-scale, cinematic, psychologically charged prints of staged scenes set in suburban landscapes and interiors. He directs a large production and lighting crew to ...

, Robert Cumming,

Stephen De Staebler Stephen De Staebler (March 24, 1933 – May 13, 2011) was an American sculptor, printmaker, and educator, he was best recognized for his work in clay and bronze. Totemic and fragmented in form, De Staebler's figurative sculptures call forth the m ...

, Richard DeVore,

Jim Dine Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935) is an American artist. Dine's work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, letterpress, and linocuts), sculpture, and photography. Educ ...

Herbert Ferber Herbert Ferber (April 30, 1906 – August 20, 1991) was an American painter and sculptor. He is an abstract expressionist and is considered a vital member of the New York School." Background Herbert Ferber Silvers was born on April 30 ...

Llyn Foulkes Llyn Foulkes (born 17 November 1934, in Yakima, Washington) is an American artist living and working in Los Angeles. As a student at Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts), Foulkes began exhibiting with the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles in 1959. He ...

, Judy Fox,

Sam Francis Samuel Lewis Francis (June 25, 1923 – November 4, 1994) was an American painter and printmaker. Early life Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California,

David Gilhooly David Gilhooly (also known as David James Gilhooly III; April 15, 1943 – August 21, 2013) was an American ceramicist, sculptor, painter, printmaker, and professor. He is best known for pioneering the Funk art movement. He made a series of ...

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, Printmaking, printmaker, Scenic design, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considere ...

, Diane Itter, Ferne Jacobs, Bill Jacobson,

Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker. Considered a central figure in the development of American postwar art, he has been variously associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and ...

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism.Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for ...

, Ron Kent,

William Kentridge William Kentridge (born 28 April 1955) is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. He is especially noted for a sequence of hand-drawn animated films he produced during the 1990s, constructed by filming ...

Sanit Khewhok Sanit Khewhok (;born 1944) is a painter, sculptor, curator, and conservator. Early life and education He was born in Trang, Thailand, in 1944, and, in 1969, graduated from Silpakorn University in Bangkok with a diploma in fine art. He then stu ...

, Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz,

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

, Ken Little, Tony Marsh,

Junko Mori (born 1974) is a Japanese artist based in Wales. Working primarily in metalwork sculpture, Mori’s works are aggregate pieces usually connected thematically and visually to her observations of living matter, particularly plants. Her choice ...

Yasumasa Morimura Yasumasa Morimura (森村泰昌, Morimura Yasumasa, born June 11, 1951) is a contemporary List of Japanese artists, Japanese Performance art, performance and Appropriation (art), appropriation artist whose work encompasses photography, film, a ...

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

Vik Muniz Vik Muniz (; born 1961) is a Brazilian artist and photographer. His work has been met with both commercial success and critical acclaim, and has been exhibited worldwide. In 1998, he participated in the 24th International Biennale in São Paulo, ...

, Jay Musler,

Ron Nagle Ron Nagle (born February 21, 1939) is an American sculptor, musician and songwriter. He is known for small-scale, refined sculptures of great detail and compelling color. Nagle lives and works in San Francisco, California. Life Born in S ...

Otto Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants '' Audo'', '' Odo'', '' Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded fr ...

and

Gertrud Natzler Gertrud Amon Natzler (7 July 1908 – 3 June 1971) was an Austrian-American ceramicist, who together with her husband Otto Natzler created some of the most praised ceramics art of the 20th century, helping to elevate ceramics to the status of a ...

Louise Nevelson Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast, ...

Catherine Opie Catherine Sue Opie (born 1961) is an American fine art photographer and educator. She lives and works in Los Angeles, as a professor of photography at the University of California, Los Angeles. Opie studies the connections between mainstream an ...

Dennis Oppenheim Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist, performance artist, earth artist, sculptor and photographer. Dennis Oppenheim's early artistic practice is an epistemological questioning about the na ...

Otto Piene Otto Piene (, 18 April 1928 – 17 July 2014) was a German-American artist specializing in kinetic art, kinetic and technology-based art, often working collaboratively. He lived and worked in Düsseldorf, Germany; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and G ...

, Kenneth Price,

Lucie Rie Dame Lucie Rie, (16 March 1902 – 1 April 1995) () was an Austrian-born, independent, British studio potter. She is known for her extensive technical knowledge, her meticulously detailed experimentation with glazes and with firing and her unu ...

, Liza Ryan,

Alison Saar Alison Saar (born February 5, 1956) is a Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles-based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist. Her artwork focuses on the African diaspora and black female identity and is influenced by African, Caribbean, and ...

Lucas Samaras Lucas Samaras (; September 14, 1936 – March 7, 2024) was a Greek-born American photographer, sculptor, and painter. Early life and education Samaras was born in Kastoria, Greece on September 14, 1936. He studied at Rutgers University and b ...

Adrian Saxe Adrian Saxe is an American ceramic artist who was born in Glendale, California in 1943. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Biography Saxe studied at the Chouinard Art Institute (Los Angeles, California) from 1965 to 1969 and earned ...

, James Seawright, Joseph Seigenthaler,

Andres Serrano Andres Serrano (born August 15, 1950) is an American photographer and artist. His work, often considered transgressive art, includes photos of corpses and uses feces and bodily fluids. His '' Piss Christ'' (1987) is an amber-tinged photograph of ...

, David Smith,

Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS, feminism, and gender ...

Rudolf Staffel Rudolf Harry "Rudi" Staffel (1911 – 2002) was an American ceramic artist and educator. Biography Rudolf Staffel was born in 1911 in San Antonio, Texas. Staffel attended Brackenridge High School. Staffel initially wanted to be a painter, a ...

Pat Steir Pat Steir (born 1938) is an American painter and printmaker. Her early work was loosely associated with conceptual art and minimalism, however, she is best known for her abstract dripped, splashed and poured "Waterfall" paintings, which she sta ...

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (May 12, 1936 – May 4, 2024) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. He lived and worked in New York City for much of his career befor ...

Jason Teraoka Jason Jun Teraoka (born 1964) is a figurative painter who was born in Kapaʻa, Hawaiʻi. He is a fourth-generation Japanese-American who lives and works in Honolulu, and is largely self-taught. In 2000, he received the Hawaii State Foundation ...

Masami Teraoka Masami Teraoka (born 1936) is an American contemporary artist. His work includes '' Ukiyo-e''-influenced woodcut prints and paintings in watercolor and oil. He is known for work that merges traditional Edo-style aesthetics with icons of American cu ...

Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosop ...

Richard Tuttle Richard Dean Tuttle (born July 12, 1941) is an American postminimalist artist known for his small, casual, subtle, intimate works. His art makes use of scale and line. His works span a range of formats, from sculpture, painting, drawing, print ...

Peter Voulkos Peter Voulkos (born Panagiotis Harry Voulkos; 29 January 1924 – 16 February 2002) was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic c ...

Kara Walker Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, printmaker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores Race (classification of human beings), race, gender, human sexuality, sexual ...

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

, William Wegman,

Tom Wesselmann Thomas K. Wesselmann (February 23, 1931 – December 17, 2004) was an American artist associated with the Pop Art movement who worked in painting, collage and sculpture. Early years Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati. From 1949 to 1951 he atten ...

Beatrice Wood Beatrice Wood (March 3, 1893 – March 12, 1998) was an American artist and studio potter involved in the Dada movement in the United States; she founded and edited '' The Blind Man'' and '' Rongwrong'' magazines in New York City with French ...

, Cindy Wright and

Daisy Youngblood Daisy Youngblood (born 1945) is an American modern sculptor and ceramic artist. She grew up in North Carolina and lives in New Mexico. She was a 2003 recipient of a MacArthur Fellows Program genius grant. Life Youngblood was born in 1945 in Ash ...

. With the merger of The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu and the

, this collection became the property of the Honolulu Museum of Art and is often on view at both Spalding House and at the main museum building on Thomas Square.

History

In addition to preserving art since 1940, the museum maintained the historic Spalding House and gardens. The Spalding House in Makiki Heights was built as a residence in 1925 by

Anna Rice Cooke Anna Rice Cooke (September 5, 1853 – August 8, 1934) was a patron of the arts and the founder of the Honolulu Museum of Art. Biography Anna Charlotte Rice was born on September 5, 1853, into a prominent missionary family on Oahu, Hawaii. Her fa ...

, widow of

Charles Montague Cooke Charles Montague Cooke (May 6, 1849 – August 27, 1909) was a businessman during the Kingdom of Hawaii, Republic of Hawaii, and Territory of Hawaii. Life Charles Montague Cooke was born May 6, 1849, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father was Amos Star ...

. At the same time, the

was being built on the site of her former home on Beretania Street in Honolulu. The Makiki Heights home was designed by Hart Wood and later enlarged by the firm of

Bertram Goodhue Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (April 28, 1869 – April 23, 1924) was an American architect celebrated for his work in Gothic Revival architecture, Gothic Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, Spanish Colonial Revival design. He also d ...

and Associates. The Honolulu Academy of Arts acquired the estate as a bequest from Cooke's daughter, Alice Spalding, in 1968 and operated it as an annex for the display of Japanese prints from 1970 to 1978. A private developer in the late 1970s sold it to a subsidiary of

The Honolulu Advertiser ''The Honolulu Advertiser'' was a daily newspaper published in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the largest daily newspaper in Hawaii. It published daily with special Sunday and Internet editions. ''The ...

. In 1986, the

Thurston Twigg-Smith Thurston Twigg-Smith (August 17, 1921 – July 16, 2016) was an American businessman and philanthropist from Hawaii. Biography Twigg-Smith was a fifth-generation descendant of missionary settlers in Hawaii. He was born in 1921 in Honolulu, Hawaii ...

family converted it to The Contemporary Museum. Following interior renovation and the construction of the Milton Cades Pavilion, the museum opened to the public in October 1988. In addition to galleries, the museum consisted of a shop, cafe, administrative offices, storage and work areas, and a director residence. The gardens were originally landscaped between 1928 and 1941 by Reverend K. H. Inagaki, a Christian minister of Japanese ancestry. From 1979 to 1980, the gardens were resuscitated by Honolulu landscape architect James C. Hubbard. During the 1990s, Kahaluu-based landscape architect

Leland Miyano Leland Miyano is an artist, landscape designer and author born and raised in Hawaiʻi. He received his Fine Arts degree from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His books include ''A Pocket Guide to Hawaiʻi's Flowers'' (Mutual, 1997), ''Hawai ...

brought the gardens to their current state. The grounds display sculpture by

Satoru Abe Satoru Abe (June 13, 1926 – February 4, 2025) was an American sculptor and painter renowned for his abstract works inspired by natural forms, particularly trees. Born in Moʻiliʻili, Honolulu, Hawaii, Abe played a pivotal role in the Hawaiian ...

Charles Arnoldi Charles Arthur Arnoldi (born April 10, 1946) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker. Life and work Arnoldi began using actual tree branches as a compositional element in his works, combined with painting to create stick constructions. ...

Deborah Butterfield Deborah Kay Butterfield (born May 7, 1949) is an American sculptor. Along with her artist-husband John Buck, she divides her time between a farm in Bozeman, Montana, and studio space in Hawaii. She is known for her sculptures of horses made fr ...

Jedd Garet Jedd Garet is an American sculptor, painter and printmaker, who was born in 1955. He was raised in California, studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, and received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Influenced by ...

George Rickey George Warren Rickey (June 6, 1907 – July 17, 2002) was an American kinetic sculptor known for geometric abstractions, often large-scale, engineered to move in response to air currents. Early life and education Rickey was born on June 6, ...

Toshiko Takaezu Toshiko Takaezu (June 17, 1922 – March 9, 2011) was an American ceramic artist, painter, sculptor, and educator whose oeuvre spanned a wide range of mediums, including ceramics, weavings, bronzes, and paintings. She was noted for her pioneerin ...

DeWain Valentine De Wain Valentine (1936 – February 20, 2022) was an American minimalist sculptor who was born in Fort Collins, Colorado. Often associated with the Light and Space movement in the 1960s, he is best known for his minimalist sculptures of transluc ...

and

Arnold Zimmerman Arnold Zimmerman (1954-2021), also known as Arnie Zimmerman, was an American sculptor and ceramic artist.Kuspit, Donald. "Arnold Zimmerman," ''American Ceramics'', Volume 15, Number 1, 2006, p. 72.Koplos, Janet. "Arnold Zimmerman at John Elder," ...

, and a wall painting by Paul Morrison. Spalding House is located at 2411 Makiki Heights Drive,

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

, and is open to the public. coordinates .

Honolulu Museum of Art at First Hawaiian Center

A satellite facility of the former Contemporary Museum located in downtown Honolulu in the

First Hawaiian Center First Hawaiian Center is the second tallest building in the U.S. state of Hawaii and the city of Honolulu, the largest city in the state. It is the world corporate headquarters of First Hawaiian Bank, the oldest and largest bank based in Hawaii ...

, the corporate headquarters of

First Hawaiian Bank First Hawaiian, Inc. is a bank holding company headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. Its principal subsidiary, First Hawaiian Bank, founded in 1858, is Hawaii’s oldest and largest financial institution headquartered in Honolulu at the First Hawaii ...

, opened in 1996. The exhibits focus on Hawaiian art and are underwritten by First Hawaiian Bank. The gallery is now curated by the Honolulu Museum of Art staff as the result of the merger of the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Contemporary Museum of Honolulu.

Merger with the Honolulu Museum of Art

On May 2, 2011, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu ceased to exist as an independent entity. The galleries and grounds continue to be open to the public with the staff of the former Contemporary Museum joining the staff of the

. The director of the Contemporary Museum became deputy director of the

, and the curatorial staff became a new Department of Contemporary Art at the larger museum. The Contemporary Museum's collection of more than 3,000 works of art, endowments, and other assets were transferred to the

.Burlingame, Burl, “Art museums sign off on merger agreement”, ''Honolulu Star-Advertiser'', May 3, 2011, p. B2 The transferred artworks now have accession numbers beginning with "TCM". The Makiki Heights building, which has about 5,000 square feet of gallery space, reassumed its former name, "

References

External links

The Honolulu Museum of Art
{{authority control Museums in Honolulu Outdoor sculptures in Hawaii Hawaiian architecture Art museums and galleries in Hawaii Contemporary art galleries in the United States Defunct art museums and galleries in the United States Art museums and galleries established in 1986 Art museums and galleries disestablished in 2011 1986 establishments in Hawaii 2011 disestablishments in Hawaii Defunct museums in Hawaii