LEO FORTESS / COLLECTOR

COURTESY PHOTO Leo Fortess and his wife, Lillian, stood in front of Solomon Island paddles he had collected. Fortess, who was known for his collection of Pacific artifacts, died Feb. 17 at 84.

Pacific culture was
collector’s forte

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By Diana Leone

dleone@starbulletin.com

Leo Fortess, known for collecting Pacific artifacts, died Feb. 17 at St. Francis Hospital after a long illness. He was 84.

Fortess, born and raised in Chicago, arrived in Hawaii in 1941 on the 76-foot schooner Chance, which he and his wife, Lillian, and two other couples with little previous sailing experience piloted from New York to Hawaii via the Panama Canal, said his son, Eric.

Fortess began collecting Polynesian artifacts as the Chance passed through the Marquesas Islands and Tahiti in 1940 through 1941, an interest that he maintained the rest of his life.

At the time of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Fortess was a draftsman for Contractors for the Pacific Naval Air Bases, his son said. He was off-duty that Sunday, but shot rolls of still and movie footage of the attack aftermath, which was later confiscated by military authorities and was never recovered, Eric Fortess said.

After the war, Fortess sold photo equipment retail and wholesale, "but his real interest was Pacific Island cultures," Eric Fortess said. Portions of his collection have been donated to the Honolulu Academy of the Arts.

"I have a smile on my face as I'm saying this," said daughter Karel Cornwell. "When I was growing up, dad was so into the culture. Around the house he wore a pareo. I grew up thinking he was Hawaiian." His ancestors were actually Spanish Jews, she said.

She recalled childhood trips to visit people on Oahu who still made poi pounders and a stream of visitors to the Fortess home that included a member of the Kon Tiki expedition and Life magazine photographers.

Fortess served as one of the few non-academic presidents of the Anthropological Society of Hawaii and was a life member of the Bishop Museum and Honolulu Academy of the Arts.

The "self-taught" Fortess proposed the use of the then-new carbon-14 dating technology to Dr. Kenneth Emory of the Bishop Museum, Eric Fortess said.

Emory and Fortess submitted materials from the Kuliouou cave shelter for the first carbon-14 date in the Pacific.

Fortess is survived by wife Lillian; daughter Karel Cornwell of Bethesda, Md.; son Eric of Newton, Mass.; and four grandchildren.

Private services are to be held, with burial at sea. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be sent to the Leo and Lillian Fortess student internship fund at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in care of the director, 900 S. Beretania St., Honolulu, HI 96814.