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HERB KAWAINUI KANE (pronounced KAH-ney) is an artist-historian and author with special interest in Hawai‘i and the South Pacific. Born in 1928, he was raised in Hilo and Waipi‘o Valley, Hawai‘i, and Wisconsin. He holds a masters degree from the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. He resides in rural South Kona on the Island of Hawai‘i.

Career experience has included advertising art, publishing art, architectural design, portrait painting, writing, aviation art (from WWI and WWII), and sculpture. Clients include private collectors, The Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, the National Park Service, as well as painting and writing for National Geographic and other major publishers of books and periodicals. His art has appeared on postage stamps for the U.S. Postal Service, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, The Federated States of Micronesia, and French Polynesia. As a design consultant he has worked on resorts and special projects in Hawai‘i and the South Pacific and a cultural center in Fiji. Books include Pele, Goddess of Hawai‘i's Volcanoes (1987), Ancient Hawai‘i (1998) and Voyagers (1991, 2nd edition 2006) which features 140 of his works in color, Voyage, the Discovery of Hawai‘i (1976) now out of print.

Research on Polynesian canoes and voyaging led to his participation as general designer and builder of the sailing canoe Hokule‘a, which he served as its first captain. Navigated without instruments, the canoe has made many long voyages throughout Polynesia. He is well known for paintings that expertly depict the many types of Polynesian and Micronesian sailing canoes.

In 1984 he was elected a Living Treasure of Hawai‘i. In the 1987 Year of the Hawaiian Celebration he was one of 16 persons named as Po‘okela (champion). From 1988 to 1992 he served as a founding trustee of the Native Hawaiian Culture & Arts Program, a Federal Program at Bishop Museum. He is the 1998 recipient of the prestigious Charles R. Bishop Medal, awarded by the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, the State Museum of Hawai‘i. Selected as a featured artist during the 2005-2006 Norman Rockwell Museum Exhibition: National Geographic, the Art of Exploration. In 2002, he received an award for excellence from The Hawaii Book Publishers Association. He is a 2008 recipient of an honorary doctorate awarded by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

He is also a featured artist in the IT'S A HONU WORLD project that promotes respect, awareness, and appreciation of creatures of this earth. Mr. Kane states “I believe that the surprise appearance of fifty five-foot whimsically painted sea turtles could spark an almost electrical “charge” of fun, excitement, and community identity to the Island of Hawaii."

"If my work contributes to our comprehension of Hawai‘i's past,

that will ultimately become the greatest reward"

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