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Ben (Robert Benjamin) Norris (1910-2006) The Pali - Study image 17 1/2 x 10 1/4 in. (44.4 x 26.0 cm) (Painted circa 1950.) image 1
Ben (Robert Benjamin) Norris (1910-2006) The Pali - Study image 17 1/2 x 10 1/4 in. (44.4 x 26.0 cm) (Painted circa 1950.) image 2
Lot 64

Ben
(Robert Benjamin) Norris (1910-2006)
The Pali - Study image 17 1/2 x 10 1/4 in. (44.4 x 26.0 cm)

6 August 2025, 12:00 PDT
Los Angeles

Sold for US$3,200 inc. premium

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Ben (Robert Benjamin) Norris (1910-2006)

The Pali - Study
signed 'Ben Norris' (lower left)
gouache and ink on paper
image 17 1/2 x 10 1/4 in. (44.4 x 26.0 cm)
Painted circa 1950.

Footnotes

Provenance
The artist.
Verne Funk (born 1932), Wisconsin, circa 1954-55, acquired from the above.

Literature
Ben Norris, Margaret Norris Castrey, ed., Ben Norris: American Modernist, 1910-2006, An Autobiography, Copley Square Press, 2009, p. 100-102.

We wish to thank the Estate of Ben Norris for their kind assistance with cataloguing the lot.

The present work is a study for Ben Norris's monumental painting, The Pali, 1950, in the permanent collection of the Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. The Pali is perhaps Norris's most famous work as the final version was selected for American Painting Today 1950: a National Competitive Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This juried show also included a work by his former student and kamaʻāina painter Reuben Tam. The Pali was shown again in 1952 at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

The Pali - Study depicts a view from the famous Nuʻuanu Pali Lookout off the Pali Highway. The cliffs of Nuʻuanu Pali hold cultural and historical significance as the site of the Battle of Nuʻuanu of 1795 which led to the unification of the Islands under King Kamehameha I.

Additional information

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