Category: Puna

Waiwelawela: Art Prints and Their Story

Hawaiʻi Island artist Donald Namohala Yuen (1931-2023) loved the island on which he was born, and often painted its many wahi pana – special places.

This oil painting, Waiwelawela, was commissioned by the developer and tour operator “Slim” Holt. Anyone with information about the original owner or other owners is invited to contact Don’s daughter, Leilehua, so that provenance can be updated. The most recent sale price of the original was US$3,500.00.

After trying different ways to bring affordable prints out, I found that the best way was on Spoonflower fabric. Find links for different options below.

Oil painting of Ka Wai o Pele - Green Lake, a small lake in Puna Makai which was overrun by lava.
Waiwelawela
(“Blue Lake” or “Kapoho Hot Ponds”)
by
Donald Namohala Yuen
Dimensions of original: 67.31cm X 174cm (26.5″ X 68.5″)
Spoonflower Fabrics

* Waiwelawela – this version is designed to print the full image 2 yards long on a 42″ width fabric.
* Waiwelawela – 60″ Crossgrain; ideal inexpensive way to order a print
* Waiwelawela – 42″ Crossgrain; ideal inexpensive way to order a print
* Waiwelawela – Repeating Border; great for valances, bedskirts, towel edges, etc.
* Waiwelawela – Foliage Ground; perfect for aloha shirts, muʻumuʻu, table covers, uphostery, or anything else

Cafe Press Products
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Totes, mugs, and stickers available at our Cafe Press shop.

Don Yuen with a painting he did in the late 1940s or early 1950s in the officer’s mess at Pearl Harbor naval base.

Image shows Don Yuen, in his early 20s, standing in front of his painting of a torch fisherman. The painting was for many years in the Pearl Harbor mess. Images shows a painting of a Hawaiian man holding a fishing spear in his left hand and a torch in his right. A young Hawaiian man, shirtless and wearing dungarees, stands in front of the painting.
Don Yuen as a young man with one of his first major commissions.
While serving in the US Navy, he was asked to paint murals in the Pearl Harbor mess and in the dive training tank.

Wai Welawela was featured in the 1951 version of Bird of Paradise. One of the delightful things about this movie is that the Hawaiian actors are native speakers of Hawaiian!

Written pre-code, it is worth watching to see some of the conflicting ideas, prejudices, preconceptions of the time. Here you will see an origin of the fantasy of the blue-eyed white man who is immediately revered by Polynesians as a king.
Sketch for “Lihi Kai,” the home Don designed at Kehena for his parents, just a few miles from Kapoho.

He also designed other homes in the area. At the time, articles about his innovative designs which integrated the houses into their environment, used natural airflow for cooling, and featured a Polynesian-Asian esthetic, called him “the Hawaiian Frank Lloyd Wright” and “The Frank Lloyd Wright of the Pacific.”