Hawaii: Around Maui with Manookian

In 2009 I rented a car in Wailuku and drove around Maui for the first time, including remote back roads seldom traveled by rental cars. I stayed at iconic hotels in Hana (Hana Ranch) and Lahaina (Pioneer Inn). At the Hana Ranch, where I spent two days at the largely empty hotel, sitting and reading on wooden benches overlooking the sea, I encountered a selection of haunting paintings by "Hawaii's Gauguin," stunning images of early Hawaiians and Cook's arrival by an obscure Turkish artist. Born in Istanbul in 1904, Arman Manookian barely survived the 1917 Armenian Massacre, when most of his family was killed. After immigrating to the U.S. as a teenager, he joined the Marines, came to Hawaii in 1925, and studied with local artists such as Madge Tenant. His few paintings did not sell, and depressed and alone, he committed suicide at a friend's home on Oahu's Black Point at age 27. After my visit, the hotel was sold, and after hanging in the hotel for 63 years, the paintings were sold by the new owners and are now in private collections. The Maui scenery is wonderful and the weather was perfect, but it was Manookian's lost paintings, no longer available to the public, that made a lasting impression.