Robert Eskridge, (1891-1975)

Hukilau 42 x 54in framed 47 x 59in

Hukilau
signed 'Robert Lee Eskridge' (lower right)
oil on canvas
42 x 54in
framed 47 x 59in
Painted in 1940.

Provenance
Mr. and Mrs. George Harton Singer, Jr., Kahala, Oahu and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Michael Horikawa Fine Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Private collection, New York.

Exhibited
Honolulu, Honolulu Museum of Art, Art Deco, Hawaii, July 03, 2014 - January 11, 2015.

Literature
'Sixteen Ideas from Four Hawaiian Rooms,' Vogue, April 1, 1941, p. 96. The Harton Singer house interior and Hukilau are featured in this fashion shoot.
Congdon-Martin, Douglas, Aloha Spirit, Hawaiian Art and Popular Design, Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA, 1998, pp. 174–175.
Don R. Severson, Finding Paradise: Island Art in Private Collections, University of Hawaii Press, 2002, p. 125, color illustration.
Honolulu Star Bulletin Newspaper article about the exhibition, illustrated.

In Don Severson's book Finding Paradise: Island Art in Private Collections, he writes: 'Hawaiian subjects dominated paintings, prints, and watercolors of Hawai'i well into the twentieth century, whether for public commissions or as personal interest. Robert Lee Eskridge approached a variety of Hawaiian themes, including the popular hukilau, a community fish harvest. An almost arbitrary use of bright color and swinging compositional rhythms result in the this decorative, cheerful record of a traditional Hawaiian activity. Images such as this came to represent the pleasurable simplicities of Island life as perceived by patrons of Eskridge and his peers. Eskridge was a well regarded California, Hawai'i, and Works Progress Administration painter and muralist. His murals are in the Ala Moana Park Sports Pavilion in Honolulu and at Palmer House in Chicago. He was also Professor of Art at the University of Hawaii. The Honolulu Museum of Art and Smithsonian American Art Museum are among the public collections holding works of Robert Lee Eskridge.'