Margaret Fleming Waldron had a long relationship with Waimea, on the island of Hawaii, and Hawaii. Before she moved to the town of Waimea, she had a distinguished career in Honolulu where from her art studio she and her associates produced products of copper, silver, crystal and native materials for jewelry, textiles, and other home furnishings fro Grossman Moody Ltd. of Waikiki Beach.

She was Artist Coordinator for the Hawaii Pavilion at the 1929 San Francisco World's Fair; she taught textile design at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and in 1950 was artist and color director for the remodeling of Straub Medical Clinic in Honolulu.

In 1962, she was once again chosen to be Artist Coordinator for the Hawaii Pavilion at the Seattle World's Fair. Margaret was regularly featured in the early "Paradise of the Pacific" magazines and had numerous one-woman shows throughout Hawaii and the Mainland.

Kama'aina residents of Waimea will remember with fondness a lady with white hair and piercing blue eyes who planted her easel in various parts of the town and painted the flowers and landscapes of our Waimea aina. Her studio was located in her house at the corner of Opelo Road and Hoku’ula Street.

Jean Charlot was born in France in the 1880's.  He had Aztec ancestors and moved with his mother to Mexico after studying at the Ecole de Beaux arts in Paris and serving as an artillery officer at the end of WWI.  

He quickly established himself in the art community of Mexico City in the very early 1920's and befriended Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Orozco, main figures in the Mexican Mural movement of the early twenties that quickly spread to the USA.

Charlot and the others visited the USA and taught - mostly in New York City - the true fresco technique, which Charlot taught to the other Mexican muralists.  In 1947, Jean Charlot moved his family to Colorado Springs, Colorado to take over as head of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Art School from which Boardman Robinson had just retired.  He also taught at the private school for boys in Colorado Springs, The Fountain Valley School.

Charlot resigned over a dispute involving tenure and other differences of opinion with the administration of the Art Center.  He moved to Hawaii to teach at the University and remained there for about thirty years until his death in 1979.  He won many awards for his work.

He has written many scholarly essays and books and lectured and taught at a host of schools.  He is the person who single-handedly resurrected the work of Jose Guadalupe Posada, the great Mexican engraver of popular art - especially the "Day of the Dead" skeleton figures that are so well known today.

Shirley Ximena Hopper Russell (May 16, 1886 – February 6, 1985), also known as Shirley Marie Russell, was an American artist best known for her paintings of Hawaii and her still lifes of Hawaiian flowers.

She was born Shirley Ximena Hopper in Del Rey, California, in 1886. She graduated in 1907 from Stanford University, where she discovered art. Shirley married Lawrence Russell, an engineer, in 1909. When he died in 1912, she began teaching in Palo Alto, and dabbling in painting.

In 1921, she and her son came to Hawaii for a visit and decided to stay. She studied under Hawaiian artist Lionel Walden during the 1920s and traveled to Europe several times to further her art education. She studied in Paris during the 1930s and the cubist influence can be seen in a number of her works. She taught art at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu for more than 20 years.

Around 1935-1936, the Japanese publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885–1962) published more than several woodblock prints she designed. The majority of these prints depict colorful and detailed tropical flowers, while at least one print, Carmel Mission, is a California landscape.

In the course of her art career, Russell had three one-woman exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art, and taught art at the University of Hawaii and the Honolulu Museum of Art. She launched many young artists in their careers when they were her students at McKinley High School, including Satoru Abe (1926-) and John Chin Young (1909–1997).

Although she painted in representational style herself, she was a staunch supporter of abstract art, and did some abstract work herself throughout her career. She continued to paint almost daily until her death in Honolulu in 1985, at the age of 98.

A self-taught Native Hawaiian artist, Ernest Naho‘olewa was born and raised in Kapahulu, Honolulu. Though largely self-directed in his practice, he studied intermittently at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, refining his craft while remaining deeply rooted in personal and cultural expression. Most active during the 1960s, Naho‘olewa often turned to his own family for inspiration, capturing the spirit, dignity, and everyday beauty of Hawaiian life.

His work moved through distinct creative periods: from stylized portraits reflecting the regal fashion of the Kalākaua and Ka‘iulani eras, to expressive interpretations of modern ‘auana hula dancers, and later, a powerful return to ancestral imagery. In his final body of work, he conducted research at the Bishop Museum to create a collection depicting ancient Hawaiian figures, incorporating intricate kapa patterns and motifs with reverence and precision.

Though his artistic output was sporadic, due in part to his quiet dedication as a caregiver and church servant, his paintings were exhibited at venues including the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Ward Centre, and a gallery in Punalu‘u. His work is held in select private collections, notably those of the late Regina Kawānanakoa, realtor Jovanna Giannasio-Fern, Dolores Furtado Martin, and the Gallery Hawaiiana collection. He was also the long-time partner and creative influence of the artist Le Branch, a connection that further underscores his quiet yet enduring presence in the Hawaiian art world.

Madge Tennent, born Madeline Cook in Dulwich, England, moved with her family to Cape Town, South Africa when she was five.  At the age of twelve, she entered an art school in Cape Town, and the following year her parents, who recognized and encouraged her talent, moved to Paris to enable Madeline to study there.  In Paris, she studied figure drawing under William Bouguereau, an experience that laid the technical foundation for her later figural drawings and paintings.  She and her family subsequently returned to South Africa, and after her marriage in 1915 to Hugh Cowper Tennent, she relocated to his native New Zealand.  In 1917 they moved to British Samoa where Tennent started her love affair with the Polynesian people.  While on leave in Australia, she studied with Julian Ashton "and learned" she said, "to draw for the very first time.  Julian Ashton founded the Sydney Art School in 1890.  He was an ardent disciple of Impressionist painting and claimed to have executed the first "plein air" landscape in Australia.  In 1923 the Tennents left Samoa to go to England, stopping in Hawai'i.  They were entranced with the islands and decided to stay.

Madge Tennent helped to support her family by taking commissions to paint and draw portraits of children.  A friend's gift of a book on Gauguin set her on an artistic course that lasted fifty years, during which she portrayed Hawaiian women in a style that increasingly became her own.  She was active in Hawai'i from the 1930's to the 1960's.  "The Hawaiians are really to me the most beautiful people in the world: she once said, "no doubt about it - the Hawaiian is a piece of living sculpture".  Using grand swirls of oil Tennent portrayed Hawaiian women as solidly fleshed and majestic - larger than life - capturing in rhythmic forms the very essence of their being.  They are strong, serene and proud.  Her method of working with impasto - applying thick layers of paint to achieve a graceful, perfectly balanced composition - is evident in Lei Queen Fantasia.  Everything on the canvas whirls.  The paint is applied in whirls in what might be called the "Tennent whirl" - the colors bright and luminous.  Tennent envisioned Hawaiian Kings and Queens as having descended from Gods of heroic proportion, intelligent and brave, bearing a strong affinity to the Greeks in their legends and persons.  She was criticized for her portrayal of larger size women but to her Hawaiian women fulfilled the standards of classic Greek Beauty.

Until his death in 1997 John Young was undoubtedly one of the dominant individuals in Hawaii's art community. He was born in Honolulu on March 26,1909, the son of Chinese immigrants and began drawing at the
age of eight, stimulated by Chinese calligraphy, which he learned in Chinese language school.

Young had his first and only art lessons while a student at McKinley High School in Honolulu. Thereafter, his art was entirely self-taught and nurtured through a life-long interest in the art and artifacts of many cultures. John Young had his first exhibition at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in Honolulu in 1930. Ten years later he won first prize at the annual exhibition of the Association of Honolulu Artists.

In the following years, John Young had numerous solo shows in Honolulu, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles, where he found many admirers of his work.

Many of Young's works on canvas or paper appear ultimately rooted in his study of classical Chinese paintings where a sense of vitality is conveyed in spontaneous brush lines. He once described his style as abstract impressionist. It is a style which emerged and evolved over the years and found expression through a number of media including woodcuts, watercolors, oils and acrylics. Gaiety of line and color became the hallmark of his mature style.

Born in Kiangsi, China in 1942, Lau Chun demonstrated interest in art at the age of ten.  After graduating from high school, he entered the Canton School of Fine Art for two years.  With a solid foundation in the ordered and exacting style of classical Asian artists, he left for Hong Kong.

In 1962, while living in Hong Kong, Lau was hired by Francis Bodo, a noted Mexican artist, to paint murals and mosiacs.  He worked with Bodo for eight years- the mosiac backgrounds in many of Lau''s paintings are not by accident.

In 1968, the Revox Corporation of Switzerland bestowed a two-year scholarship grant upon Lau enabling him to study extensively in Europe.   Revox sponsored exhibits of his work in Hamburg and Copanhagen at the end of the two year period.  Attracted by the light and color of the Hawaiian islands, the artist settled in Honolulu in 1971.

While Lau has been inspired by the French Impressionists, he developed a distinctive style that redines the tenants of classical impressionism. The uniquely textured paint surface is abstract up close but, at a distance, perfectley captures the spirit and values of his subjects.

Born on November 22, 1891, in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, James A. Eskridge moved to Pasadena, California, as a child, where his early interest in art was nurtured. He pursued formal studies at the Los Angeles College of Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and later studied in Paris with noted artists George Senseney and André Lhote. Eskridge traveled widely, particularly in Spain and the South Seas, experiences that deeply influenced his artistic style and subject matter. Before settling in Hawai‘i, he lived in Chicago, New York, and Coronado Beach, California, between 1917 and 1932.

In 1932, Eskridge moved to Honolulu, where he became a faculty member at the University of Hawai‘i, teaching until the outbreak of World War II in 1941. Deeply inspired by island life, he not only created art but also authored and illustrated several books, including Umi, the Hawaiian Boy Who Became King, My South Seas Playmates, and Manga Reva, which captured the spirit and stories of the Pacific. His body of work included paintings, illustrations, and public murals, such as those at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and the Ala Moana Pavilion.

Eskridge exhibited widely throughout his career, earning recognition at events such as the 1915 Panama-Pacific Expo in San Diego (bronze medal), the Art Institute of Chicago (1928 prize), and the 1933 Century of Progress Expo in Chicago. His works are part of major collections including the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. He passed away in Honolulu on April 16, 1975, leaving behind a rich legacy as both an artist and storyteller of Hawai‘i and the South Seas.

Ralph Burke Tyree was an American artist best known for his evocative portraits of South Pacific islanders throughout the 20th century. Born in 1921 in Kentucky and raised in California, Tyree showed early talent in portraiture, earning a scholarship to the California College of Arts and Crafts for a painting of his high school sweetheart, Marguerite (Margo) Almeida. He studied further in San Francisco and briefly worked for Disney before enlisting in the U.S. Marines during World War II. Stationed in American Samoa, he served under General Charles Price, creating murals, maps, portraits, and other commissioned artworks for the military.

Tyree’s portrait career began during the war, painting fellow Marines and their loved ones while sending lengthy love letters back to Margo. After the war, the couple married and raised seven children. In 1952, Tyree returned to the South Pacific with his family, living for extended periods in Guam, O‘ahu, Maui, and Hawai‘i Island. These islands became both home and inspiration, as he continued traveling and painting scenes from places like Palau, Fiji, Tahiti, Samoa, and the Solomon Islands.

Over a career spanning three decades, Tyree became widely known for his lush, romantic portraits of island women—often set against tropical backdrops of beaches or jungle foliage. Working primarily in oils on board, and occasionally with pastels or canvas, he captured the beauty and mystique of Pacific life. His work remains a significant visual record of Polynesian and Micronesian culture during the mid-20th century, with Hawai‘i serving as a central and enduring muse.

Charles Bartlett was an English artist celebrated for his watercolor paintings and woodblock prints, particularly those inspired by his extensive travels through Asia and the Pacific. After training at the Royal Academy in London and the Académie Julian in Paris, he experienced personal tragedy with the death of his first wife and child. He spent time in Europe painting scenes of peasant life, earning acclaim for his expressive use of watercolor and becoming one of the founding members of the Paris-based Société Peinture à l'Eau.

In 1913, Bartlett and his second wife embarked on a journey through India, Ceylon, Indonesia, and China, eventually arriving in Japan in 1915. There, he met publisher Watanabe Shozaburo and began translating his watercolor scenes into woodblock prints—works marked by rich color and elegant simplicity. In 1917, the couple traveled to Hawai‘i intending only a brief visit, but were so taken by the islands’ beauty and spirit that they decided to settle in Honolulu. Bartlett became an influential figure in the local art scene, receiving portrait commissions from prominent Hawaiians and continuing his collaboration with Watanabe to produce prints that reflected both traditional Japanese techniques and Hawaiian subjects.

In Hawai‘i, Bartlett helped shape the local art community, co-founding the Honolulu Printmakers in 1928 and contributing the first gift print for their annual exhibition in 1933. Though many of his original woodblocks were destroyed in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, enough were salvaged to allow continued printing into the 1920s. A major exhibition of his work was held at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 1939, the year before his death. His contributions to Hawai‘i’s cultural landscape remain significant, with a 2001 retrospective showcasing the full breadth of his print and painting legacy.

Little is known about the enigmatic artist Nancy Lane, but her bold and colorful paintings remain as vivid reminders of her time in Lāhainā during the 1960s and 1970s. Though not originally from Maui, Lane was active in the local art scene, selling her works at various shops along Front Street, where her expressive style and striking use of color caught the eyes of locals and visitors alike.

Stories of her life are as vivid as her canvases—some recall her living in caves, embracing a bohemian lifestyle marked by both intensity and independence. A true perfectionist, Lane was known to destroy her own paintings when unsatisfied, often starting over until a piece fully met her vision. While much of her personal history remains a mystery, the passion and raw energy of her work endure.

Several of her paintings found their way—somehow—into the Gallery Hawaiiana collection, where they continue to captivate with their unconventional spirit and fearless use of color. Lane’s life and legacy may remain partly hidden, but her art speaks volumes about a woman unafraid to live—and paint—on her own terms.