Jules Tavernier
France1844-1889
Jules Tavernier (1844–1889) was a French-born painter and illustrator who became a central figure of the American West's bohemian art world and, at the end of his life, a founder of Hawaii's Volcano School. Trained in Paris under Félix-Joseph Barrias and shown at the Salon, he served in the Franco-Prussian War before moving to London and then, in 1871, to the United States. Harper's Magazine sent him with Paul Frenzeny on a year-long sketching tour across the continent, and by 1874 he had settled in California, co-founding an early artists' colony in Monterey and later living among San Francisco's Bohemian Club circle, including a memorable evening hosting Oscar Wilde. Restless and often at odds with the city's art establishment, he continued west to Hawaii, where the fire and smoke of erupting volcanoes became his obsessive subject. He died in Honolulu in 1889, his final years marked by drink and debt. His work is held today by museums including the Met, the Crocker, and the Honolulu Museum of Art.
