Hon Chew Hee

Hon Chew Hee (1906 – 1993) was an American muralist, watercolorist and printmaker. He was born in Kahalui, on the Hawaiian island of Maui in 1906. He grew up in China, where he received his early training in Chinese brush painting. He returned to the United States in order to further his training at the San Francisco Art Institute, receiving that school's highest academic honor. He then taught in China until moving to Hawaii in 1935. In Hawaii, he worked as a freelance artist and held classes in both Western and Eastern styles of painting. Together with Isami Doi (1903-1965), Hee taught painting classes at the YMCA. At this time, Doi instructed the young artist in woodcarving techniques and Hee, like his master, created wood engravings drawn from the rural life in the Islands. Hee also founded the Hawaii Watercolor and Serigraph Society.

Hon Chew Hee also studied in New York at the Art Students League, at Columbia University, and spent three years in Paris in the 1940s studying with Fernand Leger and Andre Lhote. He was especially greatly influenced by the art of Jean Arp.

From 1932 to the beginning of World War II, Hee lived in San Francisco, where he founded the Chinese Art Association. For the remainder of his life, he lived in Kaneohe, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where he died in 1993.

Hee completed six major murals for the State of Hawaii, including the History of Medicine for Hilo Hospital and the great murals that greet departing travelers at the Honolulu Inter-island Terminal. The Hawaii State Art Museum, the Hawaii State Capital, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the National Taiwan Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri) and are among the public collections holding works by Hon Chew Hee.

References

* Forbes, David W., "Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941", Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1992, 263.
* Haar, Francis and Neogy, Prithwish, "Artists of Hawaii: Nineteen Painters and Sculptors", University of Hawaii Press, 1974, 66-73.
* Radford, Georgia and Warren Radford, "Sculpture in the Sun, Hawaii's Art for Open Spaces", University of Hawaii Press, 1978, 93.
* Yoshihara, Lisa A., "Collective Visions, 1967-1997", [Hawaii] State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1997, 142-143.