Renowned Honolulu artist Americo Makk, who with his wife, Eva, painted U.S. presidents, South American basilicas and tribesmen of the Amazon, died May 5 at the Queen’s Medical Center. He was 87.
Services and a celebration of life will start at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Star of the Sea Catholic Church.
Born in Gyorszentmarton, Hungary, Makk was studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome when he met Eva, a fellow Hungarian fresh from art studies in Paris. In 1949 they moved to Brazil and got married. The couple spent a year painting Amazon Indians, traveling up rivers and through rainforests with their baby son, Americo Bartholomew (A.B.) Makk.
Arriving back in Brazilian civilization via dugout canoe, they were commissioned by the government to paint 13 murals in basilicas and cathedrals. Their most well-known mural is “Coronation of the Virgin,” the world’s largest single-theme painting, which they created on the flat ceiling of the nearly 200-year-old Manaus Cathedral. Painting seven days a week for two years atop the multistory scaffolding built for their use, the Makks created the illusion of an arched dome populated with legions of angels.
In 1967, they moved from New York to Honolulu, setting up a studio here.
“One day, in 1967,” Eva Makk recalled, “Americo and I decided to fly to Hawaii. We loved it and called our son and told him to put the house on the market, we were staying in Hawaii.”
Americo Makk completed portraits of four U.S. presidents; his paintings of President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and President Ronald Reagan in 1984 hang in the White House. His portrait of Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty is displayed in the Vatican Museum. Portraits for a host of diplomats, governors, senators and celebrities followed and Makk has participated in at least 70 major exhibitions, with his work in collections and museums around the world.
The artist was one of the few civilians to receive the Gold Medal of Merit from Hungarian President Janos Ader. The consul general of Hungary, Laszlo Kalman, presented the order, saying, “we are particularly grateful for Americo’s accomplishments, not only as an artist in creating a permanent exhibition depicting Hungary’s history for the Museum of Hungarian Military History in Budapest, but also for his gift of painting for the rest of the world.”
The Makks’ son, A.B., has become an artist in his own right, and the family has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in paintings for auction to the American Heart Association Hawaii Chapter for its annual Heart Ball.
In addition to his wife and son, Makk is survived by daughter-in-law Sylvia Makk and granddaughter Alexandra Makk.
