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Size: 15’ wide x 7’ high ..... Acrylic on 4 plywood panels .....Completed April, 2006 Commissioned by the King Kamehameha Golf Club Honolulu Star Bulletin article
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Available as a giclee reproduction. Contact Hawaii Visions | ||||
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This painting was commissioned by a Mainland collector. His wife had been a child in Hilo and fondly remembered harvesting opihi around Coconut Island with an elderly relative. She asked for a painting of Hilo Bay. Not content with just doing another landscape of the bay, my preference was to depict a view of it at some historic moment. The first ship of some consequence to anchor in Hilo Bay was the 46 gun frigate H.M.S. Blonde, captained by Lord Byron (cousin of the poet) who had returned the remains of the king and queen of Hawaii after their death in London. Both Cook and Vancouver had avoided the bay, cautious of being blown against its lee shore by the prevailing tradewind, but Byron's first lieutenant took soundings and found the long submerged "reef" of lava that encloses and protects much of the bay. Today, the long breakwater is built on it, and it is still on the map as "Blonde Reef." Byron saw it as a fine site for wood, water and provisions to refit the ship for the journey back to England. The Queen Regent, Ka'ahumanu, entertained him with lavish hospitality and ordered that Hilo Bay be forever called Byron's Bay. After reading the journals of Byron, the naturalist Andrew Bloxam, the botanist James MacCrae, and the artist Robert Dampier, I decided to do a painting of the moment of departure. The view of the bay is looking west-northwest from the northern shore of the little islet that even at that early date had received the name, Coconut Island. Men and boys are picking opihi from the rocks. Sea birds were then very much a part of the landscape. Part of a thatched house in a grove of coconut and milo is seen at the left. A small fishing canoe is being paddled in from the right. This foreground area is in cloud shadow. In the middle distance, in bright morning sunlight, the frigate, surrounded by canoes and a local trading schooner, is ghosting out toward the channel leading to the sea in very light air, the yards braced around so the sails might catch the slightest breeze. In the distance, rising from a low cloud bank and shadowed green flanks, the summit of Mauna Kea flashes white with snow. Because this was in mid July I had resigned myself to showing Mauna Kea without snow, until I read James MacCrae’s journal. MacCrae wrote that Mauna Kea had a snow cover, and made a difficult climb to the summit where he found snow from a surface scattering to three feet in depth. Another question was the exact appearance of the Blonde. Dampier’s drawings and two paintings of the ship informed me about the sails and spars, but were lacking in detail on the hull. Fortunately the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England, has the original construction drawings and for seventy pounds I was able to purchase copies. Herb Kawainui Kane
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Collection of Sheraton Coconut Beach Hotel, Kauai | ||
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The Whaler Sunbeam off Ka‘anapali, Maui Collection of the Maui Westin Hotel. Available as a giclee reproduction. Contact Hawaii Visions | |||
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Moment of Contact The Cook Expedition off of Kauai, 1778 Collection of the Kauai Marriott Resort. Available as a giclee reproduction. Contact Hawaii Visions | |||
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Collection of King Kamehameha Hotel | ||
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Ka‘anapali in the Ancient Time Collection of Amfac/JMB Hawai‘i Available as a giclee reproduction 24x32, price is $600. Contact Hawaii Visions | ||
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King Kahekili approaching HMS Discovery off Maui Photo mural installed at the BURGER KING RESTAURANT, Kahului, Maui | ||
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