The Jean Charlot Collection
ABOUT THE COLLECTION || ABOUT JEAN CHARLOT || HIS ART || HIS COLLECTIONS || ARCHIVES OF HAWAI'I ART || RELATED SITES
History and Scope
Introduction
The Jean Charlot Collection is a major archive of documents and art works relating to the artist and writer Jean Charlot and to those whom he came in contact over his long career in France, Mexico, the United States and the Pacific. The Collection is housed in a suite of rooms in the Thomas Hale Hamilton Library of the Manoa campus.
Since the intial donation, the Collection has been considerably expanded by further gifts by Mrs. Jean Charlot and from Charlot's collaborators, such as the important fine art printer Lynton Kistler. Moreover, the Collection has been planned as the nucleus around which further related collections can be added. The papers of Juliette May Fraser are now housed in the Charlot Collection.
The Jean Charlot Collection contains materials from every stage of Charlot's life and from every area of his activity.
Art Works by Jean Charlot
Oil paintings, mural drawings, sketchbooks and a nearly complete collection of his prints.
Charlot's Personal Library
Over 1,500 items, including his own publications, many works by Paul Claudel, most of them signed, rare Mexican imprints, some possibly unique surviving copies and many books inscribed to Jean Charlot from their authors.
Writings, Both Published and Unpublished by Jean Charlot
Among the unpublished materials can be found an article in French on the Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros, written in the 1920s; a chapter written for Charlot's The Mexican Mural Renaissance but not published; a large project on the Apocalypse realized in collaboration with the major French poet Paul Claudel; unpublished research, including transcriptions of the Journal of Desire Louis Maigret, 19th century Pacific missionary and first Roman Catholic Bishop of Hawai'i; a full-length English language play on a pre-contact Hawai'ian subject; and poetry written from Charlot's youth into his middle years.
Private Documents
Including Charlot's daily journal, kept from the early 1920s until his death; tape-recorded interviews; correspondence with noted artists and scholars; and reminiscences on various people and events in his life.
Art Works by Other Artists
Including Orozco, Siqueiros, Rivera, Edward Weston, Ben Shahn, Louis Elshemius, numerous artists from Hawai'i, prints by Posada, Daumier and Mexican folk art.
Documents by or Relating to Other Artists and Scholars
Including correspondence, Diego Rivera's translation of an early French article by Charlot, Max Ernst's notes for a lecture on his own art and notes for a project by Paul Claudel.
All images and texts by Jean Charlot copyright the Jean Charlot Estate