The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is requesting an exemption from bidding in order to purchase an oil painting of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana’ole to hang in the department’s new headquarters in Kapolei. The price: an eye-popping $75,000.
Perhaps its an antique painting by a local master? Perhaps even an original done during Kuhio’s life? Nope. It’s a contemporary portrait, apparently drawn from photographs and imagination.
The artist isn’t even identified in the request for exemption, but the vendor is Kamuela Fine Arts in Honolulu, which is registered as the wholesaler for artist Shari Magno.
A Google search for information on Magno turns up more about her participation in canoe paddling events than as a high-priced artist.
FindArtInfo.com, a major online art reference, turns up no records of any auctions of her work, although a company described as Magno’s exclusive agent outside Hawaii lists a number of works. I can’t find any evidence that her paintings actually command this kind of price anywhere in the real world of art and collectors, and DHHL’s unsupported claim that “there are others interested in the piece at more than four times the above price” is quite difficult to believe given the lack of supporting evidence.
Have there been any prior comparable sales of Magno’s work? Has the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts purchased any of her work and, if so, at what kind of price? I don’t know the answers, but the request for exemption filed by DHHL doesn’t provide any answers either. Instead, it simply defends the purchase by saying other artists who responded to an earlier solicitation failed to satisfy “DHHL’s design aesthetic”, which remains undefined and unstated.
I wonder whether the State Procurement Office will let something like this slip through? The request is currently listed as “pending”.
Oops. An attempt to check Honolulu Weekly’s web site this morning turned up a “fatal error”:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: _include() in /home/.campbell/honolulu/honoluluweekly.com/wp-content/themes/default/index.php on line 94
Apparently they’re revamping the structure of the web site and things have temporarily gone awry.
State Representative Maile Shimabukuro has joined the blog world with Maile’s Blog.
Have a happy Easter and stop by again tomorrow.
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Several examples of Magno’s paintings are shown on her web site. If the painting that DHHL wants to buy is similar in style to those paintings, I would conclude that DHHL’s “design aesthetic” is best described as ” way cheesy”.
One’s aesthetic and political suspicions are inflammed. For an artist as apparently unknown as Ms. Magno to offer to sell a painting to the State for $75,000 while claiming that it is worth as much as $300,000 is to spark remembrance of Oscar Wilde’s admonition: “The more he talked of his virtue, the faster we counted our spoons.” Is the DHHL truly so gullible that they would make no inquiries among people conversant in the well developed market for Hawaii-themed paintings? Are the phone numbers to the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Bishop Museum unlisted?
If this piece is like Magno’s other works of art, it’s on a par with the dreck that former City Manager Ben Lee foisted on the taxpayers of Honolulu.
Why on earth isn’t DHHL arranging to borrow or even buy outright one of the numerous fine pieces of art commissioned by SCFA over the years – many of which are created by Native Hawaiian artists, if that’s a criterion for “design aesthetic”?
Shame on them for wasting money this way.
And her website says she got her “Master of Arts” degree from Norwich University in Vermont … a military college. Count the spoons!
I agree, why couldn’t they share the wealth with any one of our huge pool of fantastic Native Hawaii artists? Hope someone points them in the right direction as a result of your posting, Ian.
Shimabukuro’s blog isn’t really a blog in the sense of blog. . . whatever that means.
It looks like a bulletin board of announcements, hearing notices, testimonies, e-mails received and upcoming meetings.
Charles, no Hawaii politician has a “blog in the sense of blog,” so far as I know! 🙂
“Charles, no Hawaii politician has a “blog in the sense of blog,” so far as I know!”
Maybe that’s because “people” write blogs and no Hawai`i politician apparenly qualfies as a person ;>)
Wait a second, Andy. I think Maile is a good person, just not (yet) a blogger.