Juliette May Fraser

'Kana Wrestling the Turtle' by Juliette May Fraser, fresco on canec (a sugar-cane fiber-base insulation board manufactured by Hawaiian Cane Products, Inc.), 1954, Hawaii State Art Museum

'Huakaʻi-po', linocut by Juliette May Fraser, c. 1952, private collection

Detail of charcoal and sanguine mural, 1939

Juliette May Fraser (1887, Honolulu – 1983, Honolulu) was an American painter, muralist and printmaker. She was born in Honolulu in 1887. After graduating from Wellesley College with a degree in art, she returned to Hawaii for several years. She continued her studies with Eugene Speicher and Frank Du Mond at the Art Students League of New York and at the John F. Carlson School of Landscape Painting in Woodstock, New York. She returned to Hawaii to teach, like her parents who had both come to Hawaii as educators. In 1934, during the Great Depression, Fraser was invited to create a work of art for the Hawaii State Library by the Works Progress Administration. For three months she received $35 a week to work on the project. When the funds ran out, she continued on her own until ten murals were completed. Fraser also painted murals for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition and the Ipapandi Chapel on Chios Island in Greece. She died in Honolulu in 1983.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Hawaii State Art Museum, the Hawaii State Library, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Library of Congress (Washington, D. C.), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri) and the University of Hawaii at Manoa are among the public collections holding works by Juliette May Fraser.

Fraser is credited with designing the Hawaiian Sesquicentennial Half Dollar, which was engraved by Chester Beach and issued in 1928.

References

• Armitage, George Thomas, “Ghost dog and other Hawaiian, illustrated by Juliette May Fraser”, Honolulu, Hawaii, Advertiser Publishing Co., 1944.
• Colum, Padraic, “At the gateways of the day, with illustrations by Juliette May Fraser”, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1924.
• Colum, Padraic, “The bright islands, with illustrations by Juliette May Fraser”, New Haven, Yale university press, 1925.
• Department of Education, State of Hawaii, Artists of Hawaii, Honolulu, Department of Education, State of Hawaii, 1985, pp. 23–30.
• Forbes, David W., "Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941", Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1992, 210-146.
• Haar, Francis and Neogy, Prithwish, "Artists of Hawaii: Nineteen Painters and Sculptors", University of Hawaii Press, 1974, 58-65.
• Morse, Morse (ed.), Honolulu Printmakers, Honolulu, HI, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2003, pp. 23, 47 & 53, ISBN 0-937426-58-X
• Pratt, Helen Gay, “The Hawaiians: an island people. Drawings by Rosamond S. Morgan and Juliette May Fraser”, Rutland, Vt., C. E. Tuttle Co., 1963.
• Pratt, Helen Gay, “Outdoors in Hawaii. Illustrated by Juliette May Fraser”, New York, Scribner, 1948.
• Radford, Georgia and Warren Radford, "Sculpture in the Sun, Hawaii's Art for Open Spaces", University of Hawaii Press, 1978, 92-93.
• Slabaugh, Artie, "Hawaiian Sesquicentennial Half Dollar", Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine, August 20, 1960, 2462.
• Yoshihara, Lisa A., Collective Visions, 1967-1997, An Exhibition Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Art in Public Places Program, Presented at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, September 3-October 12, 1997, Honolulu, State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, 1997, p. 18.