Artists Biographies

Tip Freeman (1908-1995)

He was a film and theater stage designer who was also among the nation's top airbrush artists.

Graduating from the Chicago Art Institute, Freeman traveled internationally throughout the 1930s, working on the movie production of "40,000 Horsemen" in Australia, for which he created the scenery and sets and played the part of an Arab sheik.

In late 1939, he opened the Tip Freeman Art Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, painting murals and stage drops as well as exploring his pioneering airbrush techniques.

During World War II he sold his airbrush paintings by the hundreds to servicemen through military commissaries and was named one of the ten leading airbrush artists in the country.