Lionel Walden

Biography

Lionel Walden was born in Connecticut in 1861. He first became interested in art in Minnesota, where the family moved when his father became rector of an Episcopal Church there. As a young man, Walden moved to Paris, where he studied with E. A. Carolus-Duran.

A frequent exhibitor in the Paris salons, the "King of Bohemia," as he was called, became a skilled figure painter in addition to painting marine and harbor scenes. Though he also exhibited and won prizes in London, St. Louis, and San Francisco, Walden considered Paris his home. His participation in the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 not only earned him a medal, but also allowed him to display his famous "The Surf Riders" prominently.

In Paris, Lionel Walden became acquainted with Kimo Wilder, a Honolulu artist. The meeting was to prove fateful, as Wilder invited Walden to come to Hawaii, which he did in 1911. That visit was the first of many, as Walden fell in love with the light and water in Hawaii.

Walden earned a reputation as the finest seascape artist in Hawaii. While many of his peers were obsessed with volcanoes, Walden preferred the ocean in "all its moods, colors, and actions." He is particularly famous for his paintings of stormy seas. Walden did paint his share of volcanoes,and other landscapes, as well, and collaborated on the immense dioramas of the seven scenic wonders of Hawaii with his good friend, D. Howard Hitchcock, for the 1917 Pan-Pacific Carnival. They also joined forces with other artists to produce murals for a theater, for the telephone company, and for a ship of the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company in the early 1920s. In July 1933, Walden died in Chantilly, France, from injuries suffered in a fall.

Along with Hitchcock and Madge Tennent, Lionel Walden is considered one of the three "giants" of Hawaiian art.