Jared Young Chong

Gifted as an artist from a young age Chong was known to draw on any surface available and fill sketchbooks as quickly as they were available. While his greatest inspiration came from his native Hawaii, he found opportunities for instruction in art were limited once he past his primary education. In the 1920s very few Hawaiians pursued higher academic education and almost none in the study of art and, in an era that predated commercial air travel, few were encouraged to leave the Islands at all. Chong’s determination was focused however and, with the support, assistance and encouragement of his High School teachers and a community patron, an alumnus of the University of California, he received a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley to pursue art.

While studying at the University of California, Berkeley and at the San Francisco Art Institute, Chong had the unique opportunity to work alongside Diego Rivera, prepping the walls with fresco for Rivera’s mural The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, 1931, still in situ today. It was Rivera’s grand mural projects in Mexico, which often depicted scenes of Mexican history, society, and class struggle that inspired Chong to focus his own art, upon his return to Hawaii in the late 1930s, on the native Hawaiian population and its landscapes.

Though the outbreak of WWII, and especially the bombing of Pearl Harbor, imposed great limitations and opportunities on the young artist, ultimately the post-war focus on the Islands proved creatively beneficial. Filled with a lingering military presence, newly arriving celebrity tourists, focus on the beautiful beaches, surfing and beach boys, Hawaii enjoyed a burgeoning economy and cultural awakening leading to statehood in 1959.

From the pre-war 1930s through 1970, Chong served as Art Director for the Honolulu Advertiser supplying sketches on all aspect of daily life which opened other opportunities including landscape design of the Diamond Head Mansion, illustrating books, collaborating with architects on mid-century inspired homes, and serving as an instructor at The Academy of Art, now The Honolulu Museum of Art, where he could train and inspire Hawaii’s next generation