There is a certain poise instilled in a Pegge Hopper canvas. The conventions of her paintings tend to cohere simply enough: a gentle swatch of muted hues; a bushel of flora; an island woman with a sangfroid gaze. These elements have fashioned a recondite recipe for a career of spellbinding works, all charged with a sense of blasé calm. The artist, who at 83 years old continues to exhibit and sell her iconic portraits of Hawaiian women at her namesake gallery in Chinatown, has perfected it over the years. The postures of these painted ladies—curled, hunched, seated with legs crossed, sprawled—are now synonymous with her singular sensibility and success. Pegge Hopper is a mood.
Hopper, who was born in Oakland in 1935, had a well-rounded, if at times glamorous, arts education. She came of age in post-war southern California; studied painting, illustration, and graphic design in Pasadena in 1953; and worked for advertising agencies in New York and San Francisco after graduating. She eventually found herself in Europe in 1960. It was in Milan, where she was illustrating posters for La Rinascente, an esteemed Italian department store, that her affair with incorporating figurative sketches of women with the flat graphic design in vogue with the ad industry began to take shape.
Three years later, in 1963, Hopper, now with a newborn, moved from Los Angeles to Hawai‘i. The islands appealed to Hopper’s desire to raise a family away from the congested and urban living of Los Angeles. “Everything seemed so young and innocent, so new and fresh, so vibrant and lushly organic,” she wrote upon arriving. Years later, the same sentiments would serve as the introduction to her 2002 book, Women of Hawai‘i. In Honolulu, she was hired as an art director for an ad agency. She raised three daughters. She painted.
Hopper’s subject matter is indebted to a visit to the Hawaii State Archives where she was looking through 19th-century photographs of Hawai‘i’s islanders. She was particularly taken by the faces of the wāhine— “their open and unself-conscious gazes,” as she described them, “stared at me from another era, and whether in their native clothing or stuffed in Victorian nipped-waist dressed, I was inspired to paint them.”
The art initially began as personal works. Free from the commercial agenda that had hemmed in most of her art pursuits till this point, Hopper happened into an opportunity. She would craft a singular artistic vision, and also interrupt the marketing and imagery of Hawaiian women popular in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Hopper’s new portraits were stripped of the conspicuous luxury mandated by her early work for designer stores, replaced instead by their own brand of casual glamour—the kind of prosaic regal and romance one can adopt by fully reclining in the shade of an ‘awapuhi grove without another man in sight.
The hallmarks of a Hopper portrait insist on this solitude. Somewhat unexpectedly, Hopper’s languorous subtlety and aversion to exploiting the female form attracted the interest of a fast-growing tourism industry with hotels clambering to refine their interior furnishings and design. Her first commission—a significant delivery of 22 paintings—was for the 1969 renovation of the Kona Village on Hawai‘i Island. Soon after, more commissions of original pieces from island resorts, private companies, even the Honolulu airport, had followed, sprinkled with intermittent gallery exhibitions in between.
The irony that tints Hopper’s work is how its style and subject matter have become instantly identifiable without really identifying anybody. The Pegge Hopper woman, who is almost always left nameless in the artwork’s title, creates an alluring gulf between the viewer and the frame. Each woman’s expression, heavy-lidded and indifferent, peering out from the broad-bladed folds of bromeliads, banana leaves, or a dangling heliconia, posture an inevitable query: What is on this woman’s mind? It’s the enduring enigma of the artist’s dreamy-not-dreary sleight of hand that has kept her confounding new generations of fans. Hopper has previously expressed she has no interest in trying to understand much about the state of mind of the muses she paints. To presume anything about their interior lives she considers an invasion. And, while the expressions aren’t explicitly welcoming, they do invite contemplation. Of it all, Hopper resolves, “She can be thinking whatever you want her to be thinking.”
The original piece, “A Short Nap,” by Pegge Hopper is on display at her namesake showroom in Chinatown.
Since arriving to Hawai‘i in 1963, Hopper has been contributing to the local arts scene.
Hopper’s iconic style is synonymous with the Hawaiian women she portrays in her colorful prints.
There is a certain poise instilled in a Pegge Hopper canvas. The conventions of her paintings tend to cohere simply enough: a gentle swatch of muted hues; a bushel of flora; an island woman with a sangfroid gaze. These elements have fashioned a recondite recipe for a career of spellbinding works, all charged with a sense of blasé calm. The artist, who at 83 years old continues to exhibit and sell her iconic portraits of Hawaiian women at her namesake gallery in Chinatown, has perfected it over the years. The postures of these painted ladies—curled, hunched, seated with legs crossed, sprawled—are now synonymous with her singular sensibility and success. Pegge Hopper is a mood.
Hopper, who was born in Oakland in 1935, had a well-rounded, if at times glamorous, arts education. She came of age in post-war southern California; studied painting, illustration, and graphic design in Pasadena in 1953; and worked for advertising agencies in New York and San Francisco after graduating. She eventually found herself in Europe in 1960. It was in Milan, where she was illustrating posters for La Rinascente, an esteemed Italian department store, that her affair with incorporating figurative sketches of women with the flat graphic design in vogue with the ad industry began to take shape.
Three years later, in 1963, Hopper, now with a newborn, moved from Los Angeles to Hawai‘i. The islands appealed to Hopper’s desire to raise a family away from the congested and urban living of Los Angeles. “Everything seemed so young and innocent, so new and fresh, so vibrant and lushly organic,” she wrote upon arriving. Years later, the same sentiments would serve as the introduction to her 2002 book, Women of Hawai‘i. In Honolulu, she was hired as an art director for an ad agency. She raised three daughters. She painted.
Hopper’s subject matter is indebted to a visit to the Hawaii State Archives where she was looking through 19th-century photographs of Hawai‘i’s islanders. She was particularly taken by the faces of the wāhine— “their open and unself-conscious gazes,” as she described them, “stared at me from another era, and whether in their native clothing or stuffed in Victorian nipped-waist dressed, I was inspired to paint them.”
The art initially began as personal works. Free from the commercial agenda that had hemmed in most of her art pursuits till this point, Hopper happened into an opportunity. She would craft a singular artistic vision, and also interrupt the marketing and imagery of Hawaiian women popular in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Hopper’s new portraits were stripped of the conspicuous luxury mandated by her early work for designer stores, replaced instead by their own brand of casual glamour—the kind of prosaic regal and romance one can adopt by fully reclining in the shade of an ‘awapuhi grove without another man in sight.
The hallmarks of a Hopper portrait insist on this solitude. Somewhat unexpectedly, Hopper’s languorous subtlety and aversion to exploiting the female form attracted the interest of a fast-growing tourism industry with hotels clambering to refine their interior furnishings and design. Her first commission—a significant delivery of 22 paintings—was for the 1969 renovation of the Kona Village on Hawai‘i Island. Soon after, more commissions of original pieces from island resorts, private companies, even the Honolulu airport, had followed, sprinkled with intermittent gallery exhibitions in between.
The irony that tints Hopper’s work is how its style and subject matter have become instantly identifiable without really identifying anybody. The Pegge Hopper woman, who is almost always left nameless in the artwork’s title, creates an alluring gulf between the viewer and the frame. Each woman’s expression, heavy-lidded and indifferent, peering out from the broad-bladed folds of bromeliads, banana leaves, or a dangling heliconia, posture an inevitable query: What is on this woman’s mind? It’s the enduring enigma of the artist’s dreamy-not-dreary sleight of hand that has kept her confounding new generations of fans. Hopper has previously expressed she has no interest in trying to understand much about the state of mind of the muses she paints. To presume anything about their interior lives she considers an invasion. And, while the expressions aren’t explicitly welcoming, they do invite contemplation. Of it all, Hopper resolves, “She can be thinking whatever you want her to be thinking.”
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