‘Iolani Gallery Honors John Wisnosky

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John Wisnosky in his studio in 1982. Photo courtesy
of the Wisnosky family.

John Wisnosky, who retired in 2005 as chairman of the University of Hawaii art department and whose humor and politics sometimes pervaded his canvasses, will be honored Jan. 19 to Feb. 8 in a posthumous retrospective of his works at Windward Community College’s Gallery Iolani.

The free show is Little Seen, Less Seen, Unseen, named by Wisnosky himself, who had a hand in the exhibit’s planning prior to his death. True to its name, some of the 50 pieces completed over more than four decades have never had a public showing. All were culled from the artist’s own collection. The renowned and prolific artist and mentor died of cancer last May at age 66.

“We haven’t borrowed anything from any institutions,” said exhibit curator Tom Klobe, a Maunawili resident who served as UH art gallery director for decades under his one-time teacher Wisnosky.“It’s just things we have pulled out of the studio and some things that he had in drawers. We had them framed up. It’s just a tip of an iceberg; there are hundreds more.”

Over the years his solo shows reached from Osaka to Boston and many venues in between, including his hometown of Springfield, Ill., and Blacksburg, Va., where he taught before coming to UH in 1966.

A 1996 untitled acrylic on watercolor paper by
Wisnosky,, using his SAM redspoon pseudonym.
Photo by Hal Lum.

He favored acrylic and watercolor. The Kaneohe exhibit will have a sampling of his diverse body of interests and styles: the minimal, airbrushed landscapes and skyscapes for which he is well-known; darker-themed prints of the tumultuous late ‘60s and ‘70s; paintings dedicated to his wife, daughter and grandson with heartfelt messages written right on them; and a series of photo-realist paintings previously shown under the pseudonym SAM redspoon, a name he concocted from a spoon-throwing incident which left the utensil, dripping with red paint, stuck to his studio window (he’d been aiming to chase out a neigh-bor’s trespassing cat).

“He had a real sense of humor,” Klobe said.“Some of the paintings in the (exhibit) show that kind of humor. For laughs, see Four Nuts in the Studio, which portrays three coconuts lined on a window sill.The usual reaction is, ‘There’s only three nuts in the studio.’ Of course it took another to paint it.”

Klobe approached gallery director Toni Martin, another former Wisnosky student,and the show was born. (For hours, call 236-9155.)

“It’s a way of saying ‘Thank You’ to him ... and honoring him,“said Klobe, who remembers Wisnosky as an “excellent boss.”