Background
Arman Manookian was born on March 15, 1904, in Instanbul, Turkey. He was the oldest of three children born to a Armenian Apostolic Christian family. He was the son of Arshag Manookian, a printer and publisher of an Armenian newspaper.
Providence, Rhode Island, United States
In 1920 Arman Manookian enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design to study illustration.
Manhattan, New York, United States
Arman Manookian took additional classes at the Art Students League.
Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
Arman Manookian worked as an illustrator for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
Arman Manookian was born on March 15, 1904, in Instanbul, Turkey. He was the oldest of three children born to a Armenian Apostolic Christian family. He was the son of Arshag Manookian, a printer and publisher of an Armenian newspaper.
As a teenager, Arman Manookian survived the Armenian Genocide. After his father’s death, he immigrated to the United States in 1920, where he studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design till 1922. He spent time in New York and took additional classes at the Art Students League before enlisting in the United States Marine Corps in 1923. At this time, he changed his name to Arman Manookian and enlisted in the Marines.
While serving in the United States Marine Corps, Arman Manookian worked as a clerk for Edwin North McClellan, a writer and historian. McClellan noticed Manookian’s skill as an illustrator, and soon had the young man at work providing illustrations for Leatherneck magazine, and also for a history of the Marine Corps. These drawings are now in the collection of the Honolulu Academy of Arts. In April 1926, he walked off his post.
In 1927, Manookian was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, but remained in Hawaii. He worked as an illustrator for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and for Paradise of the Pacific.
Tragically, Manookian likely suffered from manic depression, and committed suicide in 1933. Shortly after his death a memorial exhibition for Manookian was held at Honolulu Academy, and in 2010, a memorial exhibition called Meaning in Color/Expression in Line: Arman Manookian’s Modernism was opened in his honor.
Ala Wai, Honolulu
1928Greeting by Chiefs
1928Hawaiian Boy and Girl
1928Hawaiian Landscape
1928Old Kahala Home
1928Red Sails
1928Hawaiian Woman
1929Polynesian Fishermen
1929Coral Tree by Black Point, Honolulu, O'ahu
1930Hawaiian Figure
1930Mural
1930Shaman
1930Flamingos in Flight
1931Hawaiian flowers
Hawaiians
Landscape
Men in an Outrigger Canoe Headed for Shore
Polynesian Explorers
Polynesian Girl
Polynesian Woman and Tiki
Ricefields
The Lei Seller
unknown title
unknown title
Watercolor design for mural
Arman Manookian was a member of the Honolulu Artists Association and associated with notable Hawaiian artists such as Madge Tennent, Lionel Walden, and others.