The Contemporary Museum – Makiki Heights
2411 Makiki Heights Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822
Main: (808) 526-1322; Exhibition Info: 526-0232; Café Reservations: 523-3362
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release January 10, 2009
Contact: Charlie Aldinger, Director of Museum Advancement;
Ph: (808) 237-5231; Fax: (808) 536-5970; E-mail:
caldinger@tcmhi.org
Web Site: http://www.tcmhi.org
Memorial Exhibition
Honors Kapaa-Born Artist Ray Yoshida
The Contemporary Museum (TCM) at First
Hawaiian Center will present a memorial
tribute to the Kauai-born artist Ray Yoshida
(1930-2009), who passed away in Honolulu in
January 2009. Ray Yoshida will
be on view March 12 through June 18,
2010. Admission is free during normal
banking hours. The exhibition is organized
and curated by James Jensen, TCM’s Deputy
Director for Exhibitions and Collections.
Known for his mysteriously comical,
semi-abstract paintings and collages and
four decades of teaching art at the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago, Yoshida is
credited with influencing generations of
prominent artists. He was among the most
admired contributors to a tradition known as
Chicago Imagism or the Chicago
School—the post-war tradition of
fantasy-based art making that emerged in
Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s. Among his
students were Jim Nutt, Roger Brown, Gladys
Nilsson, Karl Wirsum, and Christina Ramberg,
all of whom went on to have noteworthy
careers themselves.
Yoshida’s first mature work was a series
of luminous, jigsaw puzzle-like collages
consisting of small images and fragments of
images clipped from comic books and strip
arranged in neat rows or grids on sheets of
paper. In the 1970s, he switched to
painting, and later returned to making
comic-image collages as well in the early
1990s. In his paintings, Yoshida created
enigmatic, cartoonish images of weirdly
stylized figures in rooms, on stages, and in
landscapes. His meticulously and beautifully
rendered paintings brought figuration close
to pattern-making and abstraction. He was
influenced by folk and outsider art, of
which he was an ardent collector, and his
work was sometimes described as quirky,
funky, and idiosyncratic. His last solo
exhibition was in 1999 at Adam Baumgold
Gallery in New York City. He regularly
exhibited at the Phyllis Kind Gallery in
Chicago and once, in 1981, at the Phyllis
Kind Gallery in New York and also at the
Fleisher Ollman Gallery in Philadelphia. In
1998, TCM organized a survey exhibition that
traveled to the Chicago Cultural Center in
Illinois and the Madison Art Center (now the
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art) in
Wisconsin.
He was credited as being a force of
cohesion among, as well as an early
supporter of Chicago artists during his
career there. His students described him as
“taskmaster,” “enigmatic,” and “mysterious.”
His classroom critiques were often delivered
in a cryptic way and with a light,
even-handed irony, according to one of his
students, artist Laurie Fendrich.
Yoshida’s father was a Japanese immigrant
to Hawaii and ran a market in Kapaa. Yoshida
attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa
from 1948 to 1950, but interrupted his
schooling to serve in the United States Army
during the Korean War. After being posted in
Japan and later discharged, he joined one of
his six sisters in Chicago, where she was a
nursing student. He later earned a Bachelor
of Fine Arts degree from the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago in 1953. Five years
later, he received a Master of Fine Arts
degree from Syracuse University. In 1959, he
began teaching at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago where he remained on
the faculty into the early 2000s. His first
solo exhibition was in 1960 at the Middle
Hall Gallery in Rockford, Illinois.
Yoshida’s artworks are in several public
collections in Hawaii, including The
Contemporary Museum, Honolulu Academy of
Arts, and the State Foundation on Culture
and the Arts. His works are also in the
collections of The Art Institute of Chicago,
the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, and
the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in
Washington, and the Museum Moderner Kunst in
Vienna, Austria.
Ray Yoshida once said he considered his
canvases “the visual gathering place of my
fragmented self.”
The exhibition at The Contemporary Museum
at First Hawaiian Center will comprise works
from public and private collections in
Hawaii, as well as many works from the
artist’s estate, many of which have not been
exhibited previously.
For more information about The
Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian
Center, visit our website at
www.tcmhi.org;
Recorded Exhibition Info: (808) 526-0232;
Reception Desk: (808) 526-1322. Third
Thursdays are always free.
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General Information:
The Contemporary Museum - Makiki Heights
Entry: One-Day Membership Pass - $8 Adults; $6 Students & Seniors; Members & Children 12 and
under are free. (Cost of a one-day pass may be applied to the cost of an annual membership on
the day of issue.) It is always free to visit the Museum Shop or The Contemporary Café. Third
Thursdays are free entry days! Museum and Shop Hours: Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.;
Sunday from Noon to 4 p.m.; Closed Mondays and major holidays. The Contemporary Café Hours:
Tuesday-Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Sunday from Noon to 2:30 p.m. Café
Reservations: (808) 523-3362. Docent Tours: Tuesday-Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Cades Library Hours:
Tuesday & Thursday from 3 to 5 p.m.; or by special appointment. Parking: Free. On The Bus: #15
to Makiki Heights Drive-stops in front of the Museum. Address: 2411 Maikiki Heights Drive,
Honolulu, HI 96822. Exhibitions/Events Line: (808) 526-0232. Tours/Administration: (808)
526-1322; Web Site: www.tcmhi.org. Membership: (808) 237-5219.
The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center: Entry: Free. Hours: Monday-Thursday from
8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Closed on weekends and banking holidays;
First Fridays: 7-9 p.m. Docent Tours: Third Thursdays at Noon. Parking: TCM Members enjoy
validated parking at FHC. Address: 999 Bishop Street, Honolulu, HI 96813.
For all press inquiries, please contact Charlie Aldinger, Director of Museum Advancement, at (808)237-5231
or via e-mail at caldinger@tcmhi.org.
