Unless you happened to see their 1940 debut in New York, or their exhibition 50 years later in Honolulu, you’d be forgiven for not knowing that iconic artist Georgia O’Keeffe created 20 paintings inspired by her time in Hawaii: white ribbons of waterfalls plunging down lush, green clefts in fog-shrouded valleys, feathered Hawaiian fish hooks bobbing in pale turquoise water, tropical flowers blooming with distinctive hues and forms.

And even art authorities would get a pass for not knowing that an ad campaign for Dole pineapple juice was the start of it all – or that a 12-year-old girl served as the notoriously “difficult” O’Keeffe’s companion and tour guide at a sugar cane plantation in Hana. Although the landmark exhibition at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 1990 shared tidbits of the tale, a beautifully illustrated new book reveals the details of O’Keeffe’s 1939 visit to “TH” – the territory of Hawaii – through her luminous paintings, black and white photographs, intimate letters to Alfred Stieglitz, historical documents and a charming, thoughtful memoir by that girl, now an octogenarian living in Waimea.
— SF Gate