The Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) in Hawai‘i has named David Odo as its next director and chief executive. He will start in the role on September 1. He succeeds Halona Norton-Westbrook, who left in July 2025 to lead the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas.
Odo is currently director and chief curator of the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia in Athens. During his tenure, the museum saw record attendance, which now sees around 61,000 annual visitors. He also increased overall museum revenue by 141 percent.
A specialist in 19th-century photography of Japan, Odo has held leadership positions at the Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Art Gallery, as well as appointments at the Rijksmuseum, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Peabody Museum at Harvard University.
The appointment is also a homecoming for Odo, who was raised in Hawai‘i. His father, the late Franklin Odo, was an important scholar of Asian studies and served as the first permanent director of the University of Hawai‘i’s ethnic studies program in 1978.
“HoMA holds a world-class collection, deep civic roots, and a community that has claimed it as its own for nearly a hundred years,” Odo said in a statement. “What excites me is honoring that legacy while boldly positioning the museum for its next century.”
HoMA was also an institution he visited during his childhood, and he was drawn to the museum’s collection of Buddhist sculptures. “They sparked my curiosity about world religions,” he said. “That’s one of the things I love about art museums—they hold so much possibility to encourage one’s interest in a limitless number of subjects, and I’m excited to continue that legacy for others in our community.”
Next year, HoMA will celebrate its centennial. “David brings the experience, vision, and leadership that HoMA needs as we prepare to enter our second century,” HoMA board chair Amber Strong Makaiau said in a statement. “His record of strengthening museums through thoughtful strategic growth, sound institutional stewardship, and meaningful community engagement gives us every confidence that he is the right leader for HoMA at this important moment in our history. His understanding of Hawai‘i and international experience uniquely position him to lead the museum forward.”
