Life is Beautiful

By Elaine Terry

A.B. lounging in a swing in his garden “jungle,” created over solid rock in the family’s backyard.

A.B. Makk lives with his parents at their Waialae Iki home, along with his wife Sylvia and their daughter Alexandra. He graduated from Kalani High School ('69) and attended the University of Hawaii. He enjoys gardening and watching the stock market. He takes his parents to their doctor appointments and works around the house. He goes to bed early.

But his life, so closely intertwined with those of his family, particularly his parents, is far from ordinary.

Born in Brazil to Hungarian painters Eva and Americo Makk, A.B.'s childhood years were full of adventures. He spent days playing on 25-foot-high scaffolds, from which his parents created enormous ceiling murals in cathedrals and basilicas. He began exhibiting his artwork at the age of four and was called "Pequeno Picasso" (Little Picasso) in the local papers. At the age of seven, he traveled deep into the Amazon jungle for more than a year with his parents, who were commissioned to paint the indigenous tribal people. Childhood pets included a small spider monkey and an ocelot named Maracaja.

Today in his living room, while perusing old newspaper clippings - reports of his parents' work in Brazil during the 1950s - A.B. says, "Every time you see (photos of) my parents, I'm with them. They treated me as an adult. They took me everywhere. I met with governors. I met with presidents." And there in the photos is little A.B., seated next to his parents, meeting with dignitaries.

The family moved to New York in 1962 and then to Hawaii five years later. Through the decades, the three have remained a closely knit unit.

Eva says, "We fell in love with Hawaii. ... We came in 1967 from New York and just in three days we bought this place (their Waialae Iki residence). We sold our home in New York."

Parents Eva and Americo

A.B. says, "They called me up. Here I am a teenager, right? I'm in the middle of my junior year in high school. They say, 'Son, pack up the house and sell it. We're moving to Hawaii.'''

Eva admits that the family has lived "almost in hiding" in Hawaii over the past 40 years. Their art has always existed on an international level. They exhibited all over the world - South America, Europe, Canada and the United States - and their artwork hangs in a permanent museum exhibit in Budapest to commemorate the history of Hungary.

Eva and Americo's talents encompass a broad range of subjects in impressionism and realism styles. A.B. prefers to paint water scenes - on every canvas there is a bit of water somewhere.

"Whatever my parents want to paint, they can," A.B. says. "And whatever comes out, the way it comes out, they will it. It's not the other way around. Most artists react to the subject. My parents don't. They create the emotion and the feeling. It's very different. I'm not as good as they are yet. I've still got a few more years to go."

A.B. painting at home

Over the years, the three of them have collaborated on large pieces together, dividing the canvas into three parts. "I thought it would be nice to have this done before any one of us passed on," says A.B. "What we do is we take our own style and we put it into the painting, but we blend it together. It's quite amazing. People just don’t realize that three artists worked on these things."

The Makk family at home

The most recent work of this kind is "American Epic," a 5-foot by 7-foot oil painting with an appraised value of $750,000, on display at Island Art Galleries at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki.

An appreciation of art, they say, requires no formal education. "It's so simple, really," Eva says. "You look at it. You like it."

"It's what tugs at your heart," says Sylvia, who handles the family's art business and is an artist herself too. "That's what should be on your wall."

As artists, the way they see and experience the world is with a sensitive visual comprehension. "I tend to be a bit more perceptive than the average person,"A.B. says. "I look at colors more. I look at light. ... For example, for me, going down the hill every day is a new experience. I really truly enjoy seeing beauty all the time. I never get bored. It doesn't become like, 'Oh, I've been here. I've done it.'

"I think I like to experience every minute and I tend to see different things - a new plant, a new flower, the way the house has been painted. I try to enjoy every aspect of the moment."

"Because of this, we look at people the same way," Eva says. "Everybody's precious.

"Everything is precious in life, and everybody is to be looked at and enjoyed and savored. Life is so filled with wonderful things."