Charles Furneaux

United States·1835-1913

Charles Furneaux (1835–1913) was a Boston-born painter, photographer and drawing teacher who became the leading chronicler of Hawaii's volcanoes. After years teaching art in Melrose, Massachusetts, he settled in Honolulu in 1880, where he taught at Punahou and Iolani School and won the friendship of King Kalākaua and the Hawaiian royal family. That closeness brought him portrait commissions, including Queen Kapiʻolani in her coronation robes, and in 1885 the king honoured him with the order of Chevalier of Kapiolani for his contribution to Hawaiian art. Around 1888 he moved to Hilo, serving as American consular agent until annexation in 1898, and turned increasingly to the eruptions of Kīlauea, becoming a central figure of the so-called Volcano School. A fire destroyed his home and much of his output in 1893, and failing eyesight later curtailed his painting; he spent his final years farming coffee and bananas in Olaa, where he died in 1913. His work survives in the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Bishop Museum and the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery.