Witness to Time

The art of Edward Bailey is among the most reliable and richest sources of historic fact about 19th century Maui available to us today. Art always records something of the time and circumstances of the artist, but it seldom provides such a pristine historic record as we find in Bailey’s paintings. We can ll now see ten of Bailey’s works—views of Maui as he saw it between 1865 and 1900—in a way that the pictures have not been seen for decades. An exhibition of the paintings along with engravings from Bailey’s sketches and other artifacts, called “Witness to Time,” will be mounted at Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Schaefer International Gallery January 16 through February 11.
	Sadly, time which may in fact “heal all wounds” is less kind to oil paintings. It fades them, over-dries them, darkens them and blurs their details. Even the masterworks of the world’s most treasured artists have to be restored from time to time. That can be an daunting task, so costly that it is often not done when it must be. The Maui Historical Society, knowing that restoring Bailey’s art to its original beauty would be as hard as scaling Haleakala on hands and knees, didn’t shrink from task.Instead, they put together a broad coalition of donors, researched expert restorers, selected and prioritized paintings and started the work of bringing the light and refinement back to these artful “snapshots” of Valley Isle life in the era extending from the reign of Kamehameha V into the days of Queen Lili‘uokalani.
The results are incredible. Dark scenes that invited viewers to move in close and squint to peer back in time are now bright, inviting pastorals. Not only were the visible surfaces of the paintings restored, but in a sense, the inspiration and vision have been restored as well. Bailey was not an artist by training. Rather, he was one of the few missionaries who stayed on in the islands, teaching, after the missionary board decided not to support them. He painted because he thought it might bring in a bit of money to help him maintain his family. Besides teaching and painting, he was also an avid naturalist who supplemented his income taking jobs as an engineer and land surveyor. Hudson River School artist Enoch Wood Perry, popularly known as “Wood,” came to Hawai‘i to paint portraits of royals and scenes of traditional life at the end of the American Civil War. He may have taught Bailey some art technique. In any case, it was after Wood’s visit that Bailey, whose job as head of the Wailuku Female Seminary had ended more than a decade before, began to paint. What’s more, his paintings are recognizably in the romantic style of the Hudson River artists who focused on landscapes of peace, sometimes including people in harmonious connection to the natural world. Bailey’s feathered brush strokes and spacious compositions, at a glance, could be mistaken for Wood’s paintings as they appear in Encounters with Paradise: Hawaii and Its People, by David Forbes.
	Some of Bailey’s paintings were shown at major exhibitions on the Mainland, but many— lucky for us—remained right here on Maui. More than 25 canvases are included in the collections of the Bailey House Museum which is in the Bailey family’s Wailuku home, also the site of the Wailuku Female Seminary. The house was built in 1833 on the site of the compound of Kahekili, and the last ruling chief of Maui, was home to the Baileys until 1888. The house and grounds are featured in some of the Bailey paintings as are nearby sites like the ‘Iao Needle. In addition to the Bailey art and artifacts, “several contemporary artists have been invited to capture their own connections to the land, for their personal view of Maui… one hundred years later.” Clearly, the contrasts will be remarkable. Maui has changed and our relationship to the island is not as it was for the people here, including the Bailey family, in the days of Prince Lot, King Lunalilo, King Kalakaua and Queen Liliu‘okalani. Viewers may, however, find that something is unchanged. Perhaps the aloha ‘aina (love of the land) Bailey expressed will be seen in the paintings of such outstanding Maui artists as Duane Preble, Ed Van Der Velde, Eddie Flotte, George Brinner, Kit Gentry, Lisa Kasprzycki, Lowell Mapes, Macario Pascual, Martha Vockrodt and Sidney Yee. “Witness to Time,” the exhibit at the MACC, would have been impossible without the support of many private donors who helped to pay for the restoration of Bailey’s art. Grants were also essential, and came from the County of Maui’s Product Enrichment Program, Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, A&B Foundation and the Cooke Foundation Ltd. The Schaefer International Gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and also before Castle Theater shows and during intermissions. REMS
Conservation/Restoration Donors Grass House in Olowalu - restoration funded by Cooke Foundation Limited Grass House Upcountry 1898 - restoration funded by Geri Bal Richardson Ha`iku Mill 1895 - restoration funded by Duane & Sarah Preble, Sue Siedel, County of Maui, & Hawaii Tourism Authority Haleakala Sunset from Wailuku 1882 - restoration funded by John & Linda Decker, County of Maui, & Hawaii Tourism Authority Iao Valley and Mountains - restoration funded by A&B Foundation, County of Maui, & Hawaii Tourism Authority Kahului Harbor 1866 - restoration funded by Higgins & Shelley Maddigan Maliko Gulch 1896 - restoration funded by Allen & Donna Ting in memory of Philip A. Piper Wailuku and Iao Valley - restoration funded by Allen & Donna Ting in memory of Allen Ting, Sr. Wailuku Female Seminary 1901 - restoration funded by County of Maui, & Hawaii Tourism Authority Ford at Wailuku - restoration funded by Cooke Foundation Limited Larry & Rie Pace - frames for the Ford at Wailuku and Iao Valley and Mountains paintings Wailuku and Bailey House - 1885 - restoration funded by Tom Reed & Judy McCorkle Waikiki & Diamond Head - 1890 - restoration funded by the Zadoc W. & Lawrence N. Brown Foundation