John Young, His Life and Work
September 1, 2024 – December 8, 2024
John Young Museum of Art, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
When I met John in 1971, I was not meeting someone locked into a vision of complacency, but rather an individual who was continually seeking the uncertainties and newness of the moment.
-Nathan Oliveira
John Young: A Retrospective (Honolulu Academy of Art, 1996)
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the John Young Museum of Art, John Young, His Life and Work celebrates the joie de vivre, complexity and power of Young’s work. John Young produced a range of art pieces that deftly demonstrates both experimentation and engagement with critical art movements of his time. His early portraits are poignant without being overtly sentimental. The Flower Vendors, Mexico (1948) shows the influence of his contemporaries in Mexico such as Diego Rivera through the abstract construction of space. His 1957 Untitled (Waipahu Sugar Mill) has a geometric and elegant reduction of form reminiscent of Charles Sheeler, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Later, he moved into creating completely non-objective works, experimenting with the push-pull and vigor of Abstract Expressionism. John Young was constantly curious and evolving as an artist, pushing the boundaries of what was possible in paint.
John Young, His Life and Work primarily focuses on John Young’s paintings, exploring how travel and collecting informed and inspired his aesthetic and conceptual choices. Young was trained in traditional Chinese calligraphy from an early age, and his interest in the communicative potential of line is demonstrated in a range of works he collected including Neolithic Chinese painted ceramics. His horse paintings and drawings demonstrate the vitality and power of line, and his confidence as a calligrapher; as he said, “this kind of calligraphy comes from within.” (Interview with M. A. Meyer, 1995). The horse became John Young’s most recognizable subject matter, and it served as a surrogate for the self. He emblazoned horses on doors in his home and the homes of friends, with the fervor and immediacy of a Paleolithic cave painting. This work connects with the symbolic potency of animals, and with his avid collecting of Han Dynasty animal sculptures.
John Young was born in 1909 in Honolulu of Chinese parents who moved from Guangzhou. John Young was a self-trained artist and went to McKinley High School. His first solo exhibition was at S. & G. Gump and Company in Honolulu, and he traded his art sales for a Han Dynasty horse, igniting his passion for collecting art. He opened Beaux Arts Gallery where he sold his work, in addition to art supplies, framing and antiquities. After the sale of two of his paintings in 1936, Young traveled steerage to China where he would spend a year painting, including two paintings on display here depicting his ancestral village. On his return to Hawaiʻi he gave another solo show at Grossman-Moody in Honolulu, of which Madge Tennentʻs review said, “The characteristic shape, color, form and style of each flower is searched for, found and portrayed in a fundamentally aesthetic and interesting way.” In 1938, he exhibited at the Honolulu Academy of Art, The Golden Gate Exposition, and the San Francisco Art Museum. He had become an established artist.
Throughout all his travels his sketchbooks accompanied him, and he broadened his appreciation of art through collecting. In the interview with Meleanna Aluli Meyer he stated, “When I travel, my companion is my sketchbook. I bring back hundreds of drawings because I want to say something about what I have seen through my travels.” Following WWII, in 1945, Young traveled to the continental United States where he had a series of exhibitions, including at the Los Angeles Museum of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Portland Art Museum. He then went on to travel to Mexico where he began his collection of Pre-Columbian works and was inspired by artists such as Jose Orozco, Diego Rivera, and Rufino Tamayo. He returned to Mexico over 50 times, creating work and collecting Pre-Columbian art. He also visited Paris every spring and Bali, Bangkok, and Hong Kong every fall, where he added to his collection and drew inspiration for his work.
John Young exhibited his work at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, the Palace Legion of Honor in San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Library of Congress. He was included in shows at the Smithsonian Institution and the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and he had solo exhibitions at galleries and major museums in Hawai’i and on the U.S. West Coast.
-Debra Drexler
Interim Director of the Museum and Galleries
Special thanks to Deborah Young for her wealth of knowledge and endless support during this exhibition. Thank you to Roger and Mako Bellinger and the other members of the John Young Foundation for their support of this exhibition and their on-going support of the museum. Thanks to Joyce Okano and Rodney and Gussie Medeiros. Thanks to the staff of the University Galleries and the John Young Museum of Art, Sheika Alghezawi, Assistant Director, David Kiyabu, Gallery Exhibition Coordinator, Mia Zheng, Curatorial Graduate Assistant, Dylan Gomez, Installation Graduate Assistant, and the staff at the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Opening Reception
Date: September 1, 2024, Sunday, 2:00–4:00 PM
Location: The JOHN YOUNG MUSEUM OF ART
The JOHN YOUNG MUSEUM OF ART is located in Krauss Hall at 2500 Dole Street Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822 (Directions).
Museum hours & admission
Tuesday – Friday, & Sunday 12 – 4 p.m.
Closed Saturdays, Mondays, spring break (March 17-19), and state holidays.
Free admission. Donations are appreciated.
Parking fees may apply during weekdays. Parking is free on Sundays
For more information please contact 808.956.8364 and gallery@hawaii.edu