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His Final Decades in Hawaii: Jean Charlot 1897-1979


Although he was born and raised in France, Jean Charlot spent the final decades of his prolific career in Hawaii. In fact a 1966 retrospective exhibition of his art was held at the Honolulu Academy of Art. We have collected Charlot original prints and incorporated the collection into the decorating of our Home in Montecito.





Jean Charlot, 'LOEA HULA', Oil Painting of Iolani Luahine







Jean Charlot studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris before serving in the French Army during World War I.  His mother, with her French, Mexican and Jewish lineage, introduced him to Mexico in 1920, where he sketched for archeologists excavating Mayan ruins.  He became enthused with his Mexican heritage, as evident in a series of mural paintings in Mexico City assisting Diego Rivera and other members of the Syndicate of Painters and Sculptors.  Charlot is credited by Rivera for reviving and refining the fresco technique that he used.  After working from 1929 with lithography printer George Miller in New York, Charlot began a lifetime collaboration in 1933 with Lynton R. Kistler, master lithography printer in Los Angeles, reputedly making the first stone-drawn color lithographs in the United States.  Charlot devoted himself to themes of family and the working class, revealing the universality of human nature. Bio from,  Toby Moss Gallery, Los Angeles.






Jean Charlot, "The Spear Thrower" Original Silkscreen, 1974


During his career Jean Charlot received major awards from the Guggenheim Fellowship and Yale University. In 1966 a retrospective exhibition of his art was held at the Honolulu Academy of Arts and in 1968 a similar exhibition took place at the Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City. Today, major collections of Charlot's prints are found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Smithsonian Institution, the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts and at the Art Institute of Chicago.





Jean Charlot, LAUHALA, KAPAKAHI STREAM, KAAHALA OAHU, Serigraph, 1978


Jean Charlot, 'Hala Grove, Kahuwai, Hawaii', serigraph Hawaii State Art Museum


For Additional information on Hawaiin Art.







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