ABOUT
Dennis's initial work in New England was as a portrait artist. He began his formal training as an apprentice under Richard in 1973. He worked on the portraits of the Secretary of the Navy James Webb, Carnival Medorious and other profile portraits. In 1988 Morton was honored by Governor John Sununu at the New Hampshire State House where twenty-five of his paintings were exhibited for two weeks.
Moving to Hawaii in 1991, he continued to receive commissions in portrait painting. He painted portraits of three circuit judges, Father Damien for the Catholic church in Molokai, William Waldell the last Buffalo Soldier, John Lydgate and family in Kauai, Father Chaminade and Father Mackey of Chaminade. He was also fortunate to paint Glen Campbell and family. In 2012 he was commissioned to paint Patty Hastie — George Clooney's wife in the movie The Descendants. The portrait of Patty ended up on the cutting room floor but the director Alex Payne did a follow up called The Real Descendants in which he interviewed John Morgan, the head of Kaaawa Valley, along with others about the Hawaiian Alii and its merging with the wealthy foreigners. Alex sent Cammy Spenser from Fox in Los Angeles to John Morgan's office and she saw the painting of PuuOhulele; she decided to show the painting then morphing it into reality to start her documentary.
He has sold paintings to Richard Chamberlain, John Travolta, and Glen Campbell. Some of his landscapes have been sold to wealthy clients on Oahu and have been in the background of at least six episodes of Hawaii Five-0. Recently Magnum P.I. purchased two large paintings for their Hawaii movie set. In the mid-90s he began to aggressively pursue his interest and talents in landscape painting; many of his pieces reflect the area of Windward Oahu and Kauai. Through the years he moved back and forth from New England and Hawaii, painting many studies and paintings en plein air. He refers to his style as visual impressionism, which can be explained in Richard Whitney's book "Painting the Visual Impression" — a combination of classical realism and impressionist color notes.
In January of 2019 Dennis restored the painting for Castle Hospital.
In the early 90s, Hawaii artist Dennis Morton was commissioned by Castle Hospital to paint a mural that would serve as a healing environment for patients — something that would aid in their recovery. In 1993, the mural was installed in the hospital's main lobby. In 2019, as part of a major development project that included commissioning work by local artists, Dennis was asked to restore his masterpiece and enhance the healing environment of the hospital.
In 2017, Castle celebrated its 50th anniversary with the opening of their new Emergency Department. The new department, which was aptly titled "Healing Environment," was installed in the area of the Weinberg Mauka Plaza.
Morton was called back to the hospital to touch up the mural, and a follow-up was done about five years later as he worked on all 50 subjects — many based on actual patients, doctors, friends, and people he had met from Okinawa who were working at Castle Hospital.
The little boy in the lower right of the painting is the only one looking at you. Morton says: "That's the most important person in the painting. Your eye is drawn to the toddler, running to his mom or to the grandmother who is sitting in a chair with a physician at her side. As your eye moves around the painting, you'll see the doctor, the nurse, the patient, the family, the whole community. Hopefully, the beauty of the land, the toddler, and finding that sense of place while you're going through a time that's so uncomfortable."