30 Serigraphs: Hon-Chew Hee, 1973 SIGNED 1st ed. Near Fine

Hee, Hon-Chew, Honolulu: Hon-Chew Hee Studio, 1973

English, Near Fine square quarto 4to, 9"x 9," Signed, 73 pp.

Near Fine 4to, printed at the artist's studio in Honolulu, SIGNED on first free endpaper, "To Bernice [?], Aloha, Hon-Chew Hee, (in English and Chinese) March 2, 1975." Black cloth square 4to, 9"x 9," gilt titling to front, back and spine in stylized English and Chinese, print affixed to front panel, blind-stamped design to back panel, protected by a custom Mylar sleeve, black endpaper with white Chinese character to inner pastedown. Scribble in black pen on title page, top corner. Interior clean aside from two small spots on back of Bibliography, tightly bound, printed on textured paper. Two facsimile letters to Hee, one from Jackie Kennedy and the other from Carl Zigrosser. Includes biographical essays from Hee and 30 silkscreen prints in striking full-color. Hon-Chew Hee (1906-1993) was a Chinese American watercolorist, muralist, printmaker, who grew up in Hawaii and was working as a printer in the naval yard when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Signage was his way of contributing to the war effort, and he taught himself silkscreen technique by reading books. He was a graduate of San Francisco Art Institute and Columbia University, and he studied under Fernand Leger and Andre Lhote in Paris. 73 pp. + bibliography. A treasure, no question, rare in this condition.