William Twigg-Smith

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William Twigg-Smith's oil on canvas painting 'Hilo Sampans', 1917, 30 x 36 in.

William Twigg-Smith was an artist who was born in Nelson, New Zealand in 1883. He left home at age 16 to study at the Art Institute of Chicago under Harry M. Walcott. He came to Hawaii in 1916, where he worked with Lionel Walden and David Howard Hitchcock on the Pan-Pacific Carnival dioramas exhibited in 1917. That year marked his first exhibit in Hawaii, in a show sponsored by the Hawaii Society of Artists.

Later in 1917 Twigg-Smith returned to France to work on army camouflage for World War I. He returned permanently to Hawaii in 1919. In 1923 he was hired to be a full time illustrator for the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association. He had a one-man show at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 1927. In addition to his painting, he became second flutist with the Honolulu Symphony. He died in Kona, Hawaii in 1950. Twigg-Smith painted landscapes, seascapes, fishing activities, harbors, urban scenes, gardens, sugar cane fields and volcanoes. The Honolulu Academy of Arts holds several of his works.