This style of surfboard is called "Alaia". It is a very old-fashioned shape, in use in the 1600's. It has a round nose and a square tail.
This hand-shaped slab came from a monkeypod tree that grew in Kilauea. The tree lived some 50 years before it succumbed to high winds.
The artist is Bill Hamilton who was a surfboard shaper and glasser on Oahu in the 1960's and moved to Hanalei, Kauai in 1970, where he founded the first surf school. He won many awards and starred in several surf movies. He is the father and mentor of Laird Hamilton, a present day icon in the surfing world.
Quote from Bill Hamilton - "In 1967, when I first started shaping surfboards, I went to the Bishop Museum to study early surfboard shapes. I got permission to go into the Archival Room. It would be many years and three more trips to the Bishop Museum to understand what I was working on. Today I can replicate what they were making in the 1600's because I hold that knowledge intact. A lost art has been found!"
Bill Hamilton made this board for Havaiki Gallery8'4"H x 16.5"W x .5"D