Maui artist Tadashi Sato walked into the Guggenheim one day during the late years of his life to see an abstract oil painting the museum had acquired from him decades earlier.

It was to be his last trip to New York City, and "he really wanted to see the painting," recalled his sister Keiko Sato. He had not laid eyes on the cafe au lait-colored canvas, punctuated with both soft and clean-edged shapes, since 1957 when it became his first to be included in a permanent collection.

Inside the museum, however, the artwork could not be found.

"He was told there was was no record of such a purchase. So, he was shocked and then puzzled," said Keiko Sato, who learned about the incident shortly before her brother's death in 2005 at age 82.

"I helped care for him during the last three weeks of his life, and he mentioned that several times," she said. After the funeral, Keiko Sato happened upon old letters — one written by Tadashi Sato and another by his wife, Kiyoko — expressing happiness that the young artist's efforts were being recognized with the Guggenheim's purchase.

"I thought, 'Wow, here it is,' " said Keiko Sato, who then set out to track down the missing artwork.

A BROTHER REMEMBERED

As an artist, Tadashi Sato is remembered for feathery brush strokes and subtle compositions influenced by abstract expressionism, Japanese culture and calligraphy, and Maui's natural beauty.

Keiko Sato also remembers a caring brother. Tadashi Sato was the oldest of six children raised in Lahaina where their parents, Tadao and Yone Sato, owned a candy store.

Keiko Sato, the youngest sibling, recalls that when she was 9 years old, her 16-year-old brother noticed her affinity for music and helped pay for piano lessons. She went on to earn degrees in piano instruction, worked for many years as a music instructor and administrator, and still maintains a roster of nearly 40 piano students.

Tadashi Sato began earning wages as a yard boy when he was a teenager. "I asked him toward the end of his life: 'Did you ever feel a burden ... at being the oldest son?'

In response, "He said, 'No.' He just took it as a matter of fact what he needed to do. He really took good care of all of us," said Keiko Sato, recalling that their father would often leave the house before sunrise and return late at night.

Tadashi Sato's artistic talent was evident even in grade school. While a Kamehameha III student, he won a territory-wide poster contest that came with a $2.50 prize.

"The great part about that was that Mom told him he could keep the prize money," Keiko Sato said, smiling at the memory. He was proud of the award. Through years of study at Japanese language school, he also developed sought-after calligraphy skills.

In 1943, a few years after graduating from Lahainaluna High School, Tadashi Sato joined the Army and served in the Pacific during World War II. He went on to enroll at Honolulu School of Art, a Honolulu Academy of Arts facility.

A visiting abstract painter, Ralston Crawford, helped pave the way for him to study at Brooklyn Museum Art School. Under the tutelage of Crawford and Stuart Davis — both American Modernist painters — Tadashi Sato's paintings took on elements of abstract expressionism.

SEEING THE SOURCE

Keiko Sato keeps three Tadashi Sato paintings in her Honolulu apartment. She bought two when her brother was struggling to make a living as full-time painter. The third was a gift from the artist.

With quick strides, the slim 78-year-old woman disappeared into one of the apartment's back rooms, returning with a Nakalele landscape oil painting inspired by Maui's Ka'anapali Coast — one of Tadashi Sato's favorite fishing areas. Its white and blue contours seem to speak of the sea, while pink shapes evoke West Maui's deep, tropical soil.

"This was his favorite one in a series," Keiko Sato said.

Tadashi Sato never said how he felt about any piece of art, except to note those he considered "good ones," his sister said.

On one occasion, though, he took Keiko Sato and her daughter to see the source of inspiration for a large-canvas painting dominated by shining bluish, greenish hues.

"He drove us toward Nakalele, then stopped the car and said: 'There.' There was this barren hill — all brown with rocks sticking out. And here was this dry bush on the top," she recalled. "What he did was take all of the colors of the surrounding area — the ocean, the sky — and fuse them together, and that became this beautiful painting."

Tadashi Sato intended his artwork to speak for itself — a point underscored by artist Marcia Morse in an essay that accompanied a 2002 retrospective show of his work at The Contemporary Museum.

"Informed by years of disciplined practice, Sato allows his brush to speak for him and to us, in a kind of calligraphic language which serves as both expression and abstraction."

She also wrote that as viewers, "we become aware of the quiet and patient energy that has generated a field of elegant strokes that capture in turn the unceasing energy of nature — the shimmer of light, the fluctuations of air, the rhythms of water."

Jay Jensen, deputy director of exhibitions and collections at The Contemporary Museum, said such strokes are a distinctive feature of Sato's work.

"If you look at the surface of his paintings — especially in a sort of raking light, in a glance from the side — you see this wonderful, almost rocking back and forth texture of the brushstrokes," he said, adding that the effect doesn't come across in photos.

Ronald Yamakawa, executive director of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, met Sato in the mid-'70s, describing the artist as patient, kind and generous. Though he had a "great sense of humor," Yamakawa said, he was also "deeply philosophical."

'I'M NOT DONE YET!'

In her apartment, Keiko Sato lifted the Nakalele canvas away and laughed when she saw a visitor's gaze still fixed on it. The moment reminded her of a story tied to Tadashi Sato's first big break as a painter in the 1950s:

Actor and art collector Charles Laughton was visiting the artist's New York apartment for a viewing, after one of Tadashi Sato's friends, a movie extra, told Laughton about Sato.

"(Sato) showed (Laugh-ton) a painting and then thought, 'Well, it's long enough,' and started to take the painting away. Then Mr. Laughton said, 'Wait a minute, I'm not done yet!"

A moment later, Laughton said, "This is pure poetry."

Laughton, actor Burgess Meredith and others purchased Sato's paintings, and soon thereafter, he quit his day job as a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art.

In 1960, he moved back to Hawai'i and continued painting as a full-time job.

A letter written by Tada-shi Sato mentions leaving the guard job. It also says, "The Guggenheim Museum purchased one of my small oils for their permanent collection. This is really a lift. For in every painter there is hope that someday his work will be in some museum."

Those words and others in family letters prompted her to write to the Guggenheim.

In August 2006, she was notified that officials were looking into the matter of the missing painting. Six months later, Keiko Sato received a letter of apology stating that the individual at the Guggenheim who told Tadashi Sato there was no record of the purchase was misinformed.

In August 2007, Keiko Sato flew to New York for a private viewing of the painting, which had been boxed in a Manhattan storage facility. It was an opportunity to verify with her own eyes that it was indeed Tadashi Sato's artwork, and thereby return a kindness to her brother.

"Tadashi was always there for me, and I could talk a lot with him," she said, recalling that toward the end of his life they had several heart-to-hearts about books, family and life.

Asked how she felt upon seeing the painting, Keiko Sato paused and curled her chin inward.

"I can't put it into words," she said, her voice tinged with emotion. "I saw it ... and immediately I saw him right there."