Two monumental, voluptuous Hawaiian women stand poised as they prepare to debut at a Holoku Ball, one of Old Hawaii’s most treasured pastimes. The righthand figure, clad in an enveloping fuchsia holoku and matching lei haku, stares outward, surveying other guests in attendance; her friend, at left, friend pauses to examine the folds of her own electric blue dress. Pitched against a dijon yellow backdrop, they seem to radiate a spectral glow. Strands of a long woven lei, hanging aloft, fill out the abstracted area behind them.

This is an unusually piercing canvas from Madge Tennent, who, while certainly fond of strong colors, often pulled them into closer harmony. Here, however, the blues, greens, and pinks are effectively left to fend for themselves. The result is a striking — startling, even — juxtaposition of visually demanding hues. Like Lei Sellers (also 1933; Tennent Art Foundation Collection, Isaacs Art Center), the painting’s spatial construction is less resolved than in Mrs. Tennent’s successive works, though the figures themselves portend the archetypal Hawaiian woman toward which she was striving. Their billowing garments, fleshy arms, and “candlewick” fingers, all rendered with swirls of thick oil, were soon to become hallmarks of the Madge Tennent oeuvre. Little attention has been devoted to establishing an intelligible background; as in her earlier (and subsequent) 1930s paintings, the artist was far more interested in the figures themselves than the physical realm they inhabit. Indeed, these wahine are so manifestly Hawaiian, it would be impossible to place them elsewhere.

Most significant here are the major elements that would carry into Tennent’s future work: the delineation of figures using her soon-to-be authorial “cobalt line,” the fearlessly robust figures, and especially the subject matter itself.