Former museum director Jim Foster, along with trustee and distinguished former University of Hawai’i art professor Duane Preble, visited the museum last month and gave up enticing tidbits about paintings that he acquired during his reign from 1963 to 1982, a sort of golden age of acquisition for the museum. The museum’s Monet, one of the many he made of water lilies, was acquired in 1966, and Foster tells a sweet story about it. (Murray Turnbull was a two-time chair of the University of Hawai’i’s Department of Art and Architecture and still paints.)
That’s a fascinating story! It’s really interesting to learn about the secret histories of the Academy’s works.