Maui art exhibit to showcase works by Satoru Abe

The Maui Arts & Cultural Center will present Satoru Abe: Reaching for the Sun, an exhibition showcasing over seven decades of work by one of Hawai‘i’s most prominent artists, from Sept. 16 to Nov. 22, 2025, at the Schaefer International Gallery.

The retrospective marks the first solo exhibition of Abe’s work on Maui. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.

Satoru Abe (1926-2025) declared that “for me, life started…in 1948, when I said I gon’ be an artist.” From there, he charted a prolific career and became one of the most recognized artists throughout Hawaiʻi. This exhibition brings together a selection of over 70 paintings, sculptures and works on paper from the Honolulu Museum of Art’s permanent collection as well as from public and private lenders.

The exhibition was organized by the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA), where it premiered earlier this year, and is co-curated by HoMA curators Katherine Love and Alejandra Rojas Silva.

Selected works trace the development of Abe’s unique visual language and range from the artist’s early explorations of the figure in the 1950s, through his depictions of natural forms in the second half of the 20th century, to his most recent body of abstract paintings in his closing years.

Satoru Abe was born in Honolulu in 1926 and attended McKinley High School. He studied at the Art Students League in New York in the late 1940s, then returned to Hawai‘i, where he and six other Asian American artists founded the influential Metcalf Chateau group. After spending time living and exhibiting in Tokyo, Japan from 1952-53, he returned to New York in the mid-1950s, where he was exposed to the dominant Western art movements of Abstraction, Expressionism and Surrealism, influences which he incorporated into his own unique style of Modernism. In addition to four solo exhibitions at The Sculpture Center in New York, his work appeared on the cover of Art in America and was featured in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.

Abe returned to Hawaiʻi in 1970, becoming a fixture of the local arts community. He was named a “Living Treasure” by the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawai‘i in 1984, held solo exhibitions in Honolulu and Japan in the 1980s-90s and received numerous other awards and honors throughout his career. He consistently produced work in both two- and three-dimensions, shifting between paint, wood and metal in his explorations of recurring themes and motifs of rocks, seed forms, roots and trees—”whose armlike branches reach outwards to the sun or moon.”

In his final years, Abe continued to innovate, producing hundreds of abstract paintings between 2019 and 2022. He passed away in February 2025 at the age of 98, leaving a legacy of over seven decades of work and a distinguished career that continues to impact art and artists in Hawai‘i and beyond.

The Maui presentation of Satoru Abe: Reaching for the Sun is organized in partnership with Maui Arts & Cultural Center, with support from the Masaru and Shirley Fund of the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation and the County of Maui – Office of Economic Development.

Schaefer International Gallery is open from Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and also before select Castle Theater shows. Admission is free.

Public Programming

• Curators’ Presentation – Sunday, Sept. 14 at 3 p.m., Alexa Higashi Meeting Room. Co-curators Katherine Love and Alejandra Rojas Silva will discuss Abe’s career and the making of the exhibition. Free, no registration required.
• Observe & Play Family Day (In Honor of Shirley Yokouchi) – Saturday, Sept. 27 from 10 a.m. to noon Families can tour the exhibition and participate in outdoor printmaking and sculpture activities inspired by Abe’s work. Free, no registration required.
• ACTIVATIONS: After Hours at the Gallery – Friday, Nov. 21 from 5 to 8 p.m., Schaefer International Gallery and Yokouchi Pavilion & Courtyard. Live performances, music and interactive experiences expand on exhibition themes. Food and beverages available for purchase. Ticketed reservations required via MACC Box Office at mauiarts.org, opening Nov. 7.

For more information, visit mauiarts.org.