Stacy Kamehiro’s research focuses on colonial Hawaiian visual and material culture.  She has published on textiles, architecture and race images in nineteenth-century American trade card lithography, and scientific images produced during Pacific voyaging expeditions. Her book, The Arts of Kingship (University of Hawai’i Press, 2009), offers a sustained and detailed account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalakaua, the nativist and cosmopolitan ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. Kamehiro’s current work examines the politics of art organizations in Hawai’i following the overthrow of the monarchy as well as nineteenth-century Hawaiian material culture collecting and exhibition practices in local and international contexts.

Presented in partnership with the Williams College Art Department.

Student members of the Lyceum of Natural History in front of Jackson Hall, 1885. Williams College Archives and Special Collections.