Two grappling, if rangy, sumo wrestlers. Men working with molten metal at Hono­lulu Iron Works. Women on the canning lines of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company. A group of smiling boys from Kame­ha­meha Schools.

These are glimpses of a Hawaii of the late 1950s — and the unlikely work of Ansel Adams, the iconic photographer renowned for his landscape photographs of the American West and California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.

In 1957 Adams was approached by the Bishop National Bank of Hawaii — now First Hawaiian Bank — to take part in a commemorative publication to celebrate the bank’s 100th anniversary. Those shots were the result of that project.

Adams’ Hawaii photography will be exhibited in July alongside that of another American master, painter Georgia O’Keeffe, at the Hono­lulu Museum of Art. "Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: The Hawai‘i Pictures" opens July 18.

But before the show goes up on the gallery walls, the museum is asking the public’s help with digging up the history behind the Adams photographs.

Ten photos by Adams are now posted online on the Star-Advertiser’s website. Museum staffers are hoping readers will share memories inspired by them or even help identify people in the shots.

Vince Hazen, director of the museum’s art school, will contact those readers and record on video what the museum hopes will be their oral histories. The videos will be included in the exhibit.

"It’s a way to actually do more research about these images and gather more of a historical background on them," he said. "And it should generate interest in the show."

"I think it helps make the connection that Hawaii life is art-worthy," said exhibit curator Theresa Papa­niko­las.

Adams first visited the islands in 1948 for the Department of the Interior while completing a pictorial series on national parks, but he was particularly inspired on his 1957-58 visits.

"He went all over Hawaii, taking pictures of what he saw. He shot hundreds of photographs, ranging from classic landscapes to portraits, houses and buildings. He, the book’s author Edward Joes­ting, and the bank had a specific idea of wanting to capture this moment of time before statehood. It was to be Hawaii as a totally modern place, with all aspects of urban technology."

Papanikolas said that in Adams’ correspondence archived at the University of Arizona, he wanted to stay away from tourist-style pictures. "No Diamond Head, hula dancers or swaying palm trees. All of the usual visual tropes of Hawaii are absent.

"I think his photographs of Hawaii are incredibly brilliant and beautiful, and his subjects are interesting to look at," she said.

To see the Ansel Adams Hawaii photographs, visit our photo gallery; To share comments or memories, or to identify folks in the images, email features@staradvertiser.com.