Herb Kawainui Kane
(1928 - )

Herb Kawainui Kane (pronounced KAH-ney) is an artist-historian and author with special interest in Hawaii and the south Pacific. Born in 1928, he was raised in Waipio Valley and Hilo, Hawaii, 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 Hawaii. In 1984, he was elected a Living Treasure of Hawaii. In the 1987 Year of the Hawaiian Celebration, he was one of sixteen persons chosen as Pookela (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 Bishop Museum’s Charles Reed Bishop Medal. The New Quilt, the work selected for a Census 2000 poster, shows traditional Pacific Island quilt making, using a breadfruit design.

The Pacific Islander group includes Hawaiians, Samoans, Guamanians, Marshall Islanders, Tongans, Tahitians, Fijians, and others. In 1990, this population numbered about 365,000, but it should be larger in Census 2000.