Toshiko Takaezu was an American ceramic artist, painter, sculptor, and educator who was known for her rounded, closed forms that viewed ceramics as a fine art and more than a functional vessel. She is of Japanese descent and from Pepeeko, Hawaii.
Keichi Kimura (1914–1988) was a painter and illustrator who was born in Waiʻanae, Hawaiʻi in 1914. He received his first art instruction from teacher Shirley Russell while attending President William McKinley High School in Honolulu. In 1936, he earned a B.A. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he studied under Henry H. Rempel and Huc-Mazelet Luquiens, and also met fellow art student and future wife, Sueko Matsueda. Keichi continued his education at Chouinard Art Institute, Columbia University and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. He first exhibited at the Honolulu Museum of Art at 19 years of age. During the Second World War, he served with the 100th Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy and France, where he produced many drawings that were also exhibited at the Honolulu Museum of Art. He was divorced from Sueko in 1962 and died in Honolulu in 1988.
Hon Chew Hee was an American muralist, watercolorist and printmaker who was born in Kahului, 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 1920 at age 14 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.
Juliette May Fraser was an American painter, muralist and printmaker. She was born in Honolulu, which was then the capital city of the Kingdom of Hawaii. After graduating from Wellesley College with a degree in art, she returned to Hawaii for several years. She continued her studies with Eugene Speicher and Frank DuMond at the Art Students League of New York and at the John F. Carlson School of Landscape Painting in Woodstock, New York. She returned to Hawaii to teach, like her parents who had both come to Hawaii as educators. Fraser designed the Hawaii Sesquicentennial half dollar, which was engraved by Chester Beach and issued in 1928.
Tadashi Sato was an American artist. He was born in Kaupakalua on the Hawaiian island of Maui. His father had been a pineapple laborer, merchant, and calligrapher, and Tadashi's grandfather was a sumi-e artist.
Satoru Abe is a Japanese American sculptor and painter.
Reuben Tam was an American landscape painter, educator, poet and graphic artist.
Bumpei Akaji (1921–2002) was an American sculptor from Hawaii. He was known for welding large copper and brass sculptures which can be seen all over Hawaii as part of Hawaii's Art in Public Places program.
Alan Leitner is an American abstract artist. He was born in 1947 in an ethnically diverse section of Los Angeles. Alan was the middle of three children in a Jewish family. He received his B.S. in art in 1971 from Woodbury University in Los Angeles, where he met his first wife who wanted to move to Hawaii. Also in 1971, he acquired an art foundry that produced blown glass, sculpture, ceramics and paintings, which contributed greatly to his understanding of art. In 1987, he received a M.F.A. in painting from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The graduate program required students to do some teaching, and through this teaching he met Alyn Brownley who at the time headed the art program at Leeward Community College. Brownley requested Alan to teach her art class for one semester while she pursued a move to University of Hawaii at Manoa. After graduation, Dr. John Conner, the department associate dean, offered Alan a full-time teaching position at Leeward Community College, where he is currently a professor. Alan has also taught at Honolulu Community College and University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Mamoru Sato is an American modernist sculptor. He was born in El Paso, Texas in 1937. He initially majored in aeronautical engineering but switched to art, receiving a BA in fine art in 1963 and an MFA in sculpture in 1965, both from the University of Colorado. He taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1965. During the summer of 1969, he worked with Tony Smith at UH. Smith titled a piece in his For... series for Sato: For M.S.
Tetsuo Ochikubo (1923–1975), also known as Bob Ochikubo, was a Japanese-American painter, sculpture, and printmaker who was born in Waipahu, Hawaii, Honolulu county, Hawaii. During the Second World War, he served with the 100th Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. After being discharged from the Army, he studied painting and design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Art Students League of New York. In 1953, he spent a year in Japan, studying traditional brush painting and connecting with his ancestry. He worked at Tamarind Institute in the 1960s and is best known for his entirely abstract paintings and lithographs. Along with Satoru Abe, Bumpei Akaji, Edmund Chung, Jerry T. Okimoto, James Park, and Tadashi Sato, Ochikubo was a member of the Metcalf Chateau, a group of seven Asian-American artists with ties to Honolulu. Ochikubo died in Kawaihae, Hawaii in 1975.
Bob Flint, also known as Robert Flint, is an American ceramic artist. He arrived in Hawaii in 1960 for a summer of surfing and quickly realized that he wanted to stay. In 1961 he entered the University of Hawaii, earning his bachelor's and master's degrees in fine art, with a specialization in ceramics.
Esther Shimazu is an American sculptor who was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1957. Her grandparents were immigrant laborers from Japan. She attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa before transferring to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Art in 1980 and a Master of Fine Art in 1982.
Rick Mills is an American glass artist who was born and raised in Marion, Ohio. He received his bachelor of fine art degree in sculpture from Ohio State University, where the art department reopened its glass program in 1980, during Mills last semester. He moved to Hawai'i in 1981 and earned a master of fine art degree, also in sculpture, from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, where he is currently professor and director of the glass art program.
Claude Horan was an American ceramic and glass artist who was born in Long Beach, California. He received a BA from San Jose State University in 1942 and an MA degree in art from Ohio State University in 1946. His wife Suzi Pleyte Horan collaborated on many of the larger projects. He was a lifeguard and longboard surfer in Santa Cruz in the late 1930s, and is credited with naming Steamer Lane.
Mark Chai is a Native Hawaiian sculptor who designs and handcrafts fine woods and recycled materials into modern lamps, sculpture, large installations and furniture.
Sean Kekamakupaʻa Lee Loy Browne is a contemporary sculptor who was born in Hilo, Hawaii. He attended the Kamehameha Schools and then earned a BA in studio art from the University of Redlands in 1975.
Kenneth Wayne Bushnell was an American visual artist, who was born in Los Angeles. He earned a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1958, and then moved to Hawaii, where he received an MFA from the University of Hawaiʻi in 1961. He taught painting at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa from 1961 to 1981, and was appointed chairman of the Art Department in 1991. He married fellow artist Helen Gilbert in 1995. Bushnell eventually earned the title of professor emeritus, living in Honolulu.
Aaron Padilla is an American artist and art educator.
Carol Bennett, is a Hawaii based painter and glass artist.
