Aliʻi

The Aliʻi
2021

The Aliʻi holds a particularly important place in Solario’s body of work as the second piece created for his Nā Hale series, begun early in his career as an exploration of Hawaiʻi’s distinctive architecture. What started as a small group of illustrations would grow into one of the defining threads of his work, documenting the buildings and visual character of a changing Hawaiʻi.

Built in 1959, The Aliʻi embodies the modest tropical modernism found throughout midcentury Waikīkī. Its open-air lanais, exterior screens, clean geometric forms, and palms reflect an era when the neighborhood’s architecture was adapting modern design to island life.

Rendered in a limited palette of turquoise, cream, and warm brown, the piece established much of the visual language that would continue throughout Nā Hale: isolating an individual building from the surrounding city and treating the everyday architecture of Hawaiʻi as a subject worthy of portraiture.

The Aliʻi
Uluniu Avenue · Waikīkī, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi · Built 1959
2021

Museum-quality giclée print on archival velvet fine art paper, presented with a pure white mat and individually hand-signed by Solario.