Herb Kawainui K%C4%81ne

Herbert Herb Kawainui Kne , considered one of the principal figures in the renaissance of Hawaiian culture in the 1970s, was a celebrated artisthistorian and author with a special interest in the seafaring traditions of the ancestral peoples of Hawai i. Kne played a key role in demonstrating that Hawaiian culture arose not from some accidental seeding of Polynesia, but that Hawai i was reachable by voyaging canoes from Tahiti able to make the journey and return. This offered a far more complex notion of the cultures of the Pacific Islands than had previously been accepted. Furthermore, he created vivid imagery of Hawaiian culture prior to contact with Europeans, and especially the period of early European influence, that sparked appreciation of a nearly forgotten traditional life. He painted dramatic views of war, exemplified by The Battle at Nu uanu Pali, the potential of conflicts between cultures such as in Cook Entering Kealakekua Bay, where British ships are dwarfed and surrounded

Kne was born in the community of Paynesville, Minnesota in the United States. His father, who was also named, Herbert, worked in family poi business, and became a paniolo , then traveled the US in a Hawaiian Band. He later served in the Army and Navy, and had his own practice as a doctor of Optometry. Herbert Jr.s grandfather immigrated to Waipio Valley from China and being very industrious he built the first poi factory in the islands, growing taro and producing poi for market. His mothers family were farmers of Danish ancestry in Wisconsin. Knes childhood was divided between Wisconsin and Hawai i. He describes in his book, Voyagers, an early awakening to art. In 1935 he was a barefoot child in Hilo, Hawaii, brought by his mother to the opening of a gallery exhibition of the work of D. Howard Hitchcock. He writes that he was stunned, confronted with miracles seeing Hitchcocks work and speaking with him briefly.11 Hitchcock was the first Hawaiianborn artist to achieve international re

Source: Wikipedia