Annexation Aloha shirt

Waltah Clarke

This aloha shirt by Waltah Clarke, an entrepreneur, who after spending several years in Honolulu, set up a business in Palm Springs, specialising in island fashions. The shirt's label reads: 'Made in Honolulu for / Waltah Clarkes's / Hawaiian Shop / Honolulu - Palm Spring / Palm Beach - Las Vegas - All ovah'. The 'all ovah' reflects Clarke's predilection for using Hawaiian pidgin English as a marketing gimmick.

This shirt features fantastical imagery from a set of murals painted by Eugene Savage (1883 - 1978), an American painter who taught at the Yale School of Art & Architecture.

Hawai’i’s Decisive Hour

For this print Waltah Clarke has drawn primarily on Savage's mural entitled Hawai’i’s Decisive Hour, which focuses on the annexation of Hawai'i. In Savage's mural, which depicts Queen Lili`uokulani calmly seated in front of the Iolani Palace, the over throw of the Hawaiian monarchy and the annexation of Hawai'i is depicted as a celebration for all.

Eugene Savage's Matson & Co murals

In 1938, Matson & Co, whose oceanliners dominated the Pacific, commissioned Eugene Savage to paint six large scale murals (four by eight foot) mural celebrating Hawaiian culture. Savage spent three months in Honolulu researching and sketching material culture, the topography, flora and fauna.

"But far from documenting Hawai'i's indigenous art and customs, Savage used all he absorbed as a set of props in an elaborate visual narrative that articulates, embellishes, and reimagines life in the islands as a celebratory spectacle of color, pattern, and movement. His fantasy portrayal of historic and local tropical culture was mirrored in the hospitality, allure, and entertainment value of the contemporary island experience. By romanticizing perceptions of Hawai'i's timeless exoticism and natural beauty in stylish, boldly decorative, and inescapably Art Deco terms, the murals served the tourism industry in its ambition to promote Hawai'i as a paradise on earth." (1)

From murals to menus to printed fabrics

The outbreak of World War II, saw Savage's murals go into storage rather than on display. In 1948, however, Matson & Co reproduced the images from the murals on their souvenir menus for the passenger ship S.S Lurline which regularly travelled from the West Coast of the US to Honolulu. The Kamehameha clothing brand also produced matching aloha wear  from 1951 to 1956.

The clothing company commissioned textile designer John Keoni Meigs and Mallinson Company, a renowned New York textile manufacturer, to translate the murals into textile prints.  Mr Briner of Kamehameha believed that together, the three parties had 'accomplished what the trade regard as an  impossible task in producing a seven-color reproduction of the Eugene Savage Matson menu painting in the print now being given its world premier in Honolulu'. (2) The resulting shirts and dresses (see FE013078/1 and FE013078/2) could be purchased on board the cruise liners, as well as onshore in Hawai'i.

Co-collecting in Hawai'i

This shirt was acquired by Te Papa during a co-collecting trip to Hawai'i in 2017 based around the aloha shirt, and associated designs. Te Papa worked with Noelle Kahanu, a cultural specialist from the University of Hawai‘i, to develop collection that reflects the ways in which Hawaiian culture has been historically represented, and misrepresented, through the aloha shirt, and the ways in which contemporary native Hawaiian designers are utilising the aloha shirt to communicate indigenous cultural values.

Te Papa’s co-collecting programmes are guided by the principle of mana taonga – the sharing authority with stakeholder communities. 

References

1. Eugerne Savage: Matson Murals, Honolulu Museum of Art http://honolulumuseum.org/art/exhibitions/14950-eugene_savage_matson_murals/

2. 'Fabric Wins Praise", Honolulu Star Bulletin, October 3, 1951. Quoted in  D. Hope., The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Island, Patagonia, p. 133.