Hawaiian connection - photographer dad

A portrait of Munakata Shiko photographed by Francis Haar. Munakata was a woodblock printmaker, famous for his action-painting like arroach to carving wood block, and was very well known internationally. I even saw his documentary film in my Art 101 class at U of H.

Francis Haar was a distinguished photographer in his homeland, Hungary, and when his wife Irene and he came to Japan, he was treated as such, set up studio and took photos of many celebrities, artists, politicians and so on. They later decided Hawaii would be their retirement home.

I was back to Hawaii again, after 10 years after graduation. Tom san requested my help to put together a large photographic exhibition of his father's past works. The exhibition was held at a building by the Aloha Tower, downtown Honolulu. Later, Francis and Irene invited me for a dinner at their home. The house I visited on St. Louis Heights was Francis's residence.

Before coming to Hawaii, Irene owned a Hungarian restaurant in Ginza,Tokyo, which was frequented by many celebrities. She was a marvelous cook, too, so what I was served then was a superb dinner, which ended with a cup of orange grass tea.