Qualla: Statue of Father Damien

Statue of Father Damien: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit blahedo, Public domain. Most statues of heroes depict them at their best. This one shows a man at his worst — and that is precisely the point. The bronze figure of Father Damien that stands at the entrance to the Hawaiʻi State Capitol wears glasses, carries one arm in a sling, and bears the disfiguring scars of Hansen's disease across his face. The sculptor, Marisol Escobar, based her work on a photograph taken near the end of the Belgian priest's life, after leprosy had claimed his body but not his purpose. It is an intentionally uncomfortable statue, and Hawaiʻi placed it at the front door of its government.

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Image: blahedo | Public domain

Statue of Father Damien: The Priest of Kalaupapa

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, Public domain. Father Damien — born Jozef De Veuster in Tremelo, Belgium — arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1864 as a young Catholic missionary. In 1873, he volunteered to serve at the leprosy settlement on the isolated Kalaupapa Peninsula of Molokaʻi, where the Hawaiian government had been forcibly reloc...

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Image: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America | Public domain

Statue of Father Damien: Sixty-Six Artists and a Broken Mold

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA, Public domain. In the late 1960s, the Hawaiʻi State Statuary Hall Commission solicited bids from sixty-six artists to create a statue of Father Damien for the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C. Seven finalists submitted models. Marisol Escobar, a Venezuelan-American sculptor ...

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Image: Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA | Public domain

Statue of Father Damien: Two Statues, Two Lost Shipments

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA, Public domain. The cursed shipping history echoed a much older Hawaiian story. The Kamehameha Statue, commissioned by King David Kalākaua in the 1870s, had also been lost at sea when the ship carrying it sank near the Falkland Islands. That statue was eventually recovered, but not before a repl...

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Image: Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA | Public domain

Statue of Father Damien: Honesty Cast in Bronze

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA, Public domain. What makes the statue remarkable is its refusal to sanitize. Father Damien could have been portrayed as the handsome young priest who first arrived at Kalaupapa, full of purpose and physical strength. Instead, Hawaiʻi chose the version of Damien that most fully embodied his sacri...

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Image: Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA | Public domain