Herb Kawainui Kāne


Herbert Kawainui Kāne was an American artist and historian of Hawaiian ancestry. He is widely cited as a significant figure associated with the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance of the 1970s. His work focused on the seafaring traditions of the ancestral Hawaiian peoples.
Kāne sought to define Hawaiian culture as distinct, rather than portraying it as having arisen incidentally from drifting Polynesia canoes. He sought to demonstrate that Hawaiʻi was reached intentionally with goal canoes that were able to return from voyages from Tahiti. This hypothesis suggested a more complex understanding of the cultures from the Pacific Islands than previously accepted.
Kāne created artworks depicting Hawaiian culture as it existed before European contact and immediately after. The themes of his paintings include war, such as in the painting Battle of Nuʻuanu; the potential for conflict between cultures, such as in Cook Entering Kealakekua Bay, where British ships were dwarfed and surrounded by Hawaiian canoes; and quotidian scenes and images of ceremonial and spiritual life.

Early life and education

Kāne was born in Marshfield, Minnesota. His father, also named Herbert, worked in the family poi business, became a paniolo, and later traveled across the United States with a Hawaiian band. He also served in the Army and Navy and eventually worked as an optometrist. Kāne's grandfather immigrated to Waipio Valley from China and built the first poi factory in the Hawaiian Islands, where he cultivated taro and produced poi for the market. Kāne's mother's family was a farming family of Danish ancestry in Wisconsin. Kāne spent his childhood moving between Wisconsin and Hawaiʻi.
In his book, Voyagers, Kāne describes his early awakening to art. In 1935, as a child in Hilo, Hawaii, his mother took him to an art gallery, which was exhibiting the work of D. Howard Hitchcock. Kāne wrote that he was "stunned, confronted with miracles" upon seeing Hitchcock's work and had a brief conversation with him. Hitchcock, the first Hawaiian-born artist to achieve international recognition, focused on Hawaiian subject matter, especially the volcanic eruptions near Hilo. According to Kāne, in addition to this early exposure to art and his parents' encouragement of his interest in drawing, his most formative experiences in childhood were in Hawaiʻi, where his father and family passed down the traditional folk tales of the islands.
Kāne later served in the United States Navy, qualifying for veterans' educational benefits under the G.I. Bill. After his discharge, he used these benefits to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he earned a Bachelor's degree and, in 1953, a Master's degree. Under an arrangement between the two schools at that time, his Master's degree was awarded by the University of Chicago.

Early career

Herb Kāne operated his own advertising studio located on Chicago's famed Michigan Avenue, known as "The Magnificent Mile." As a designer, illustrator, and author, he created advertisements for books, magazines, and television. However, Kāne found advertising work unsatisfying, noting that he grew tired of drawing the Jolly Green Giant, even after winning a campaign featuring the character.
Kāne had been sailing a racing catamaran on Lake Michigan when he began researching Hawaiian canoes at the University of Chicago library and the Field Museum of Natural History. In 1961, the Field Museum publicly displayed one of the most extensive collections of Pacific Ocean artifacts at the time.
In the 1960s, Kāne created a series of fourteen paintings depicting Polynesian canoes. In 1969, these paintings were purchased by the Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, which was then headed by its first director, Alfred Preis, the architect of the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaiʻi. Kāne later stated that this purchase enabled him to move to Hawaiʻi, where he lived in Honolulu and continued his study of Polynesian voyaging canoes.

The ''Hōkūleʻa'' and its cultural impact

In Honolulu, Kāne attracted a group of sailing enthusiasts, including University of Hawaiʻi anthropologist Ben Finney and Tommy Holmes, author of The Hawaiian Canoe. Together, they founded the Polynesian Voyaging Society and began working on the Hōkūleʻa, a voyaging canoe that was based on historical Polynesian design, capable of sailing between Hawaiʻi and Tahiti. Their purpose was to demonstrate that ancestral Polynesian voyagers could have purposely navigated in vessels of similar type to settle Hawaiʻi. Kāne said his goal was also to spur a revival of cultural identity among Hawaiians and peoples of the Pacific islands. He wrote that in 1973, he, with several others at the time, realized that "if a voyaging canoe were built and sailed today, it would function as a cultural catalyst and inspire the revival of almost-forgotten aspects of Hawaiian life."

"What intrigued me was to see, if by building this canoe and putting it to active use and taking it out on a cruise throughout the Hawaiian islands, introducing it to the Hawaiian people, training Hawaiians to sail it, if this would not stimulate shock waves or ripple effect throughout the culture- in music and dance and the crafts. And we know it did."

Kāne designed and named the Hōkūleʻa, which was launched on March 8, 1975. Technically, the craft was a full-scale replica of a waa kaulua, a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe. The name Hōkūleʻa came to Kāne in a dream, he said. It is the Hawaiian term for the star Arcturus, which is important to celestial navigation in the Pacific, and the zenith star of the Hawaiian Islands. He served as the skipper for two years as the canoe sailed trial cruises among the Hawaiian Islands to attract crew and support for its maiden international voyage.
Kāne's role in the creation and promotion of the Hōkūleʻa helped restore pride to the peoples of the Pacific, and his paintings of traditional Hawaiian scenes and historical events have contributed to restoring lost identity. Tony Jones, the President of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, stated that Kāne had "rewritten the history of the Pacific." Nainoa Thompson, navigator of the Hōkūleʻa, said Kāne was "the visionary, the dreamer, and he was the architect and the engineer. He's the one that carried the burden of building, constructing, and sailing Hōkūleʻa." Thompson also stated that Kāne's legacy is "transforming Hawaiʻi's society because he brought pride and culture and inspiration back, through the canoe... He is the father of the Hawaiian Renaissance."
Kāne died on March 8, 2011, the 36th anniversary of the launch of the Hōkūleʻa.

Art works

Daniel Inouye, United States Senator from Hawaiʻi, stated that Kāne's artwork "captured both ancient and modern-day Hawaiʻi and helped preserve Hawaiʻi's unique culture for future generations." Kāne's work was shown in large art galleries like the Bishop Museum, the largest museum in the state and the premier natural and cultural history institution in the Pacific, Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, Puukoholā Heiau National Historic Site, and in the Hawaiʻi State Capitol. His paintings of Polynesian sailing have been widely reproduced, appearing as illustrations in books and articles. Among the first of these was a series of seven paintings commissioned by National Geographic Magazine and published in the December 1974 issue.
Kāne's art is characterized by realistic and precise draftsmanship when depicting historical scenes, such as his series of voyaging canoe paintings and many other paintings of battles, everyday domestic life, and ceremonial occasions, which are extensively researched. When Kāne turned his imagination to old Hawaiian legends, alongside the Hawaiian culture's spirituality and mythology, his work became more expressionistic, with bold brushwork and vivid colors. Kāne's expressionistic style is seen in his painting Pele, Goddess of the Volcano. Standing on display at the Jaggar Museum at Kīlauea, it depicts the supernatural figure with fire in her eyes and flowing lava as her hair.
Kāne's art was often heavily researched to ensure historical accuracy, including details such as weather and cloud coverage. He consulted with contacts in Washington, D.C., and around the globe to achieve accuracy in his research. Kāne also uncovered ship plans in the Maritime Museum in London, which he used for some of his paintings. He designed tapestries that reflected the beauty of his paintings.

Site-specific works

Kāne's paintings include several large canvasses or murals for hotel lobbies and similar public and commercial spaces. His 1973 mural, made of wool, titled Opening of the Pacific to Man, was designed for a space above the entrance to the Pacific Trade Center, on Alakea and King Streets in central Honolulu. It measures high and wide, and depicts voyaging canoes and a central male figure holding a paddle. In the corner of the mural is a representation of the wayfarer's chart, traditionally made of shells and sticks, in which islands and ocean swell patterns are encoded to assist the training of a navigator. As a design consultant, Kāne worked on resorts and visitor centers in Hawaiʻi and the South Pacific, as well as a cultural center in Fiji. Kāne was commissioned by the National Park Service in 1976 to paint "Keoua's Arrival", which is on permanent display in the Visitor Center at Puukoholā Heiau National Historic Site. Several of his large canvasses are on permanent view at the Outrigger Hotel in Waikiki in Honolulu, where the management dedicated the area as a permanent tribute to Kāne.
One 1973 site-specific mural, painted on a custom-designed wall as part of a history center under construction at Punaluu Beach, gained notoriety twice. The historical mural, titled Ancient Punaluu, Hawaiʻi Island, measured wide by high. According to a news report, "The mural shows alii, warriors and commoners on the black sandbar, which separates Punaluu Bay from a pond where springs provide fresh water immediately behind the beach... A ceiling of thatch gave the feeling of being inside an old Hawaiian shelter, and the thatch hid lighting, which gave a natural, daylight look to the mural. Pebbles and sand at the base of the painting met real pebbles and sand on the floor of the history center." In 1975, the mural survived a tsunami that destroyed the interior of the building. According to Kāne's account on his personal blog, quoting eyewitnesses, the wave pushed all the displays out the far side of the room and left a mud line three or four feet high on the wall—except on the mural, which was dry and undamaged. Then, in 2005, the mural was stolen from the site, which was vacant and unfinished. Thieves are believed to have cut out the wall in five sections using a circular saw powered by a portable generator, and in this way, stole the painting, which has never been recovered. Kāne responded by recreating a version of the mural in oil paint on canvas, saying, "Now all the thieves have is a preliminary sketch. Vengeance is mine."

Stamps

Kāne designed seven postage stamps for the U.S. Postal Service including stamps commemorating each of the 25th and the 50th anniversaries of Hawaiian statehood. His 1984 stamp for the 25th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood depicts a double-hulled voyaging canoe, a Pacific golden plover, and a volcano erupting on the flank of Mauna Loa, on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. On the day of its release, sales of this stamp set a new record for the U.S. Postal Service.
Kāne's 2009 stamp for the State's 50th anniversary depicts a person surfing and people paddling a traditional outrigger canoe, all riding the same wave. This stamp engendered some controversy, as Kāne was critical of the typography in the final design, which he felt mistakenly substituted an apostrophe for the symbol that signals a glottal stop in the word Hawaiʻi and is known by the term okina. He also designed stamps for several Pacific island nations, including French Polynesia, the Federated States of Micronesia, as well as the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Three-dimensional art

In addition to his paintings, Kāne also produced a limited-edition bronze sculpture and other three-dimensional works besides the Hōkūleʻa. His bronze sculpture, The Young Kamehameha, stands in Wailea, Maui.

Last commission

Kāne's last commissioned work was for the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, a wall-sized painting of Kamehameha I's landing in Oahu. Though he died before the work was completed, he left instructions stating that Brook Kapūkuniahi Parker should finish the commission. However, the hotel displayed the work as unfinished.

Publications

Kāne communicated the importance of Hawaiian culture and its origins in print and television. Kāne is the author of several books, including:
Kāne is an illustrator of:
Online interviews include:
  • Never Lost: Polynesian Navigation
  • Ask the Experts: Herb Kawainui Kāne Kāne served as a member of the advisory panel for the 1998 independent film, The Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey, which was broadcast widely on television stations including those of the U.S. Public Broadcasting System.