Gouache and ink on paper
Signed Ben Norris lower left
1950
17 1/4" x 25 1/2 including period frame image 10 1/4" x 17 1/2"
Provenance: The artist
Verne Funk Wisconsin acquired from the artist in 1954-55.
Literature: Ben Norris, Margaret Norris Castrey, ed., Ben Norris: American Modernist, 1910-2006, An Autobiography, Copley Square Press, 2009, p. 100-102.
This rare and unique work is a study for Ben Norris's monumental painting, The Pali, 1950, in the permanent collection of the Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. The Pali is perhaps Norris's most famous work as the final version was selected for American Painting Today 1950: a National Competitive Exhibition: at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This juried show also included a work by his former student and kamaʻāina painter Reuben Tam. The Pali was shown again in 1952 at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
The Pali - Study depicts a view from the famous Nuʻuanu Pali Lookout off the Pali Highway. The cliffs of Nuʻuanu Pali hold cultural and historical significance as the site of the Battle of Nuʻuanu of 1795 which led to the unification of the Islands under King Kamehameha I.
Gouache and ink on paper
Signed Ben Norris lower left
1950
17 1/4" x 25 1/2 including period frame image 10 1/4" x 17 1/2"
Provenance: The artist
Verne Funk Wisconsin acquired from the artist in 1954-55.
Literature: Ben Norris, Margaret Norris Castrey, ed., Ben Norris: American Modernist, 1910-2006, An Autobiography, Copley Square Press, 2009, p. 100-102.
This rare and unique work is a study for Ben Norris's monumental painting, The Pali, 1950, in the permanent collection of the Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. The Pali is perhaps Norris's most famous work as the final version was selected for American Painting Today 1950: a National Competitive Exhibition: at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This juried show also included a work by his former student and kamaʻāina painter Reuben Tam. The Pali was shown again in 1952 at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
The Pali - Study depicts a view from the famous Nuʻuanu Pali Lookout off the Pali Highway. The cliffs of Nuʻuanu Pali hold cultural and historical significance as the site of the Battle of Nuʻuanu of 1795 which led to the unification of the Islands under King Kamehameha I.
