University of Hawaii at Manoa. Library. Jean Charlot Collection

The Jean Charlot Collection is a major archive of art works and documents relating to the artist and writer Jean Charlot [1898-1979] and to other artists, intellectuals, and friends he worked with or knew in his long career in France, Mexico, New York City, Georgia, Colorado, and Hawaiʻi. The includes art works, correspondence, and photographs of Mexican mural luminaries such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco. Charlot amassed important photograph and print study collections, including Posada, Daumier, Weston and Modotti. Charlot’s published and unpublished writings, correspondence, diaries, record of his murals, prints, sketch books, photographs, guest books, and more make this a collection of great depth.

Charlot joined the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa faculty in 1949 and spent the greatest part of his life in Honolulu. He developed deep ties to the Hawaiian community through friends and cultural advisors Jennie Wilson, Mary Kawena Pukui, Irmgard Aluli and Rev. Abraham Akaka. Charlot studied Hawaiian under Samuel Elbert and wrote Hawaiian plays; his images of Hawaiian musicians and hula are depicted in murals, paintings, prints, and illustrations. Since the founding donation in 1981, the Collection has been considerably expanded by further gifts from his wife Zohmah Charlot, other family members, and from Charlot's collaborators, such as the important fine art printer Lynton Kistler and print scholar Peter Morse. The Collection is housed on the 5th floor in the University of Hawaii's Hamilton Library.