Charles Bartlett

Charles Bartlett was one of the most important artists working in Hawaii during the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Dorsetshire, England, in 1860, Bartlett entered the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1883. After three years of study, he entered the Academie Julian in Paris. Returning to England in 1889, he traveled to Brittany and Italy with his friend and fellow artist Frank Brangwyn. In 1913, he traveled to Asia with his wife, visiting India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka before arriving in Japan, via China, in the autumn of 1915. Bartlett left Japan in 1917, on his way to England via Hawaii. He stopped in Honolulu and ended up settling there for the rest of his life. His paintings and woodblock prints were well received in Honolulu allowing Bartlett to become an important figure in the local art world. He returned to Japan in 1919, where Watanabe published 16 woodblock prints includingthree of Hawaiian subjects. Bartlett held a number of one-man shows in Hawaii and the U.S. mainland, and his paintings and prints were published in Paradise of the Pacific magazine. In 1933 he established the Honolulu Print Makers. A retrospective exhibition was mounted at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 1939, and he passed away in April of 1940.
In 2002 The Honolulu Academy of the Arts Published, "A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett."