Reuben Tam

'The Island', painting by Reuben Tam

Reuben Tam (1916 - 1991) was an American landscape painter, educator and graphic artist. He was born in Kapaa on the Hawaiian island of Kauai on Jan. 17, 1916. He earned a BA degree from the University of Hawaii in 1937, and also studied at the California School of Fine Art, at Columbia University with Meyer Schapiro and at the New School of Social Research in New York City. From 1946 to the 1970s, he taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Upon retirement in the 1970s, he returned to Hawaii and died there January 1991 of lymphoma.

The Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Massachusetts), the Brooklyn Museum of Art (Brooklyn, New York ), the Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, Ohio), the Corcoran Gallery (Washington D. C.), Des Moines Art Center (Des Moines, Iowa), Farnsworth Art Museum (Rockland, Maine), Fisher Gallery (University of Southern California, Los Angeles), the Hawaii State Art Museum, the Henry Art Gallery (University of Washington, Seattle, Washington), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D. C.), the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Lowe Art Museum (University of Miami, Florida), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri), the Newark Museum (Newark, New Jersey), Reading Public Museum (Reading, Pennsylvania), the San Diego Museum of Art (San Diego, California), Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery (Lincoln, Nebraska), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D. C.), the University of Michigan Museum of Art (Ann Arbor, Michigan) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York City) are among the public collections holding works by Reuben Tam.

[edit] References

Forbes, David W., "Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941", Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1992, 215-266.
Haar, Francis and Murray Turnbull, Artists of Hawaii, Volume Two, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1977, 85-90.
Tam, Reuben, “Archipelago, Life Cycle of the Hawaiian Islands, A Portfolio of Paintings by Reuben Tam”, Honolulu, Hawaii, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1998.
Tam, Reuben, “The Wind-honed Islands Rise, Selected Poems of Reuben Tam”, Honolulu, Manoa Books, 1996.
Yoshihara, Lisa A., Collective Visions, 1967-1997, [Hawaii] State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1997, 73.