The Artwork of Hon-Chew Hee
Born in Kahului on the Hawaiian island of Maui in January of 1906, Hon-Chew Hee was an American muralist, watercolorist and printmaker. An educator in both China and Hawaii, he founded the Chinese Art Association in 1935 and the Hawaii Watercolor Society in 1962.
From the age of five to fourteen, Hon-Chew Hee lived with his parents in Zhongshan, Guangdong, China, where he was trained in the art of Chinese brush painting. In 1921, Hee returned to Hawaii where he continued his elementary education. He began his art education in United States in 1929 as a part-time student at the California School of Fine Art, now the San Francisco Art Institute. Completed during this period was Hee’s earliest known painting, “Spring in Southern San Francisco”, an exercise in the Western techniques of light, color and composition. Hee had the opportunity to study fresco painting under Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who had been encouraged by sculptor Ralph Stackpole and collector Albert Bender to visit San Francisco.
From 1929 until the beginning of World War II, Hee lived in San Francisco where he founded the Chinese Art Association. He entered his work in various exhibitions 
during this period. For the 1937 second annual National Exhibition of American Art, Hee presented his “Waimea Canyon”, a colorful canvas depicting the natural reddish canyon located on Kaua’i Island. For the March 1940 opening of New York’s Schoenemann Galleries on Madison Avenue, he had a solo exhibition of forty-three watercolors and drawings that received favorable reviews. Single figure studies dominated this show, among these was his “Sleeping Chinese Boy”.
Hon-Chew Hee registered for the military draft in October of 1940. In October of 1945 in Honolulu, he married Marjorie Yuk Lin Wong who earned her degrees in medicine from Columbia University and the University of Hawaii. At this time, Hee was employed at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard and taught painting classes at the Nuuanu YMCA. The painter and printmaker Isami Doi 
was also teaching at the YMCA and instructed Hee in the art of wood engraving. In 1948, Hee entered his artwork, which included the “Farmer’s Blessing”, in the July non-jury exhibition at New York State’s Woodstock Gallery.
After a period of study at the Art Students League in New York, Hee traveled in September of 1949 aboard the luxury liner Ile de France to Le Havre, France. He stayed in Paris for a three-year study program with Fernand Léger and Andre L’hote, both French Cubist painters, and German painter George Grosz, best known for his 1920s Berlin scenes. Hee adopted the techniques of Cubism for his 1952 “Coffee Hour” by the use of colored blocks as sections of the coffee machine. However, his work always retained a sense of realism in its use of Eastern and Western concepts that were overlaid with traditional Chinese line-work.
Upon his return to Hawaii, Hon-Chew Hee settled in Kāneʻohe, the largest of the communities on Kāneʻohe Bay of O’ahu Island, his home for the rest of his life. Hee completed six murals fot the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts as well as a set of 
murals for the Inter-Island Terminal of the Honolulu International Airport. He created commissioned murals for the Manoa Library, Enchanted Lake Elementary School, Maui’s Pukalani Elementary School, the Hilo Hospital, and Kauai Community College.
Hon-Chew Hee died on the island of O’ahu in 1993. The Hon-Chew Hee Estate Foundation established a scholarship in 2009 for residents of Hawaii pursuing a degree in the fine arts. Hee’s work can be found in many private collections and such public institutions as the Hawaii State Arm Museum, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the National Taiwan Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.
Second Insert Image: Hon-Chew Hee, “Coffee Hour”, 1952, Oil on Canvas, 61 x 76.5 cm, Private Collection
Third Insert Image: Hon-Chew Hee, “Waiting”, Date Unkniown, Oil on Canvas 40.5 x 30.5 cm, Private Collection
Bottom Insert Image: Hon-Chew Hee, “Serigraphs”, 1973, Portfolio of 30 Serigraphs, Edition of 500, Publisher Hon-Chew Hee Studio