Juanita Donahoo: Colors of the Aura

October 1, 2026 - April 25, 2027

Sponsored by Michael F. Flanagan, Joyce & Gordon Downs, Robert Raskind Charitable Foundation, and White Wolf Wellness Foundation

The Exhibit | Artist Biography | Images | Events

The Exhibit

Colors of the Aura showcases the remarkable aura portraits created by American artist Juanita Donahoo (1897 – 1990) in the early 1930’s.

Commissioned by writer and psychic Dora van Gelder Kunz (1904 – 1999), the works are a creative collaboration between the psychic and the artist. It was the intention of van Gelder Kunz to create a series of portraits of people with which she had contact with, and others who were brought to her, to capture their personalities and character through her clairvoyant gift to see their color and energy fields. Donahoo’s artistic skills allowed her to experiment with different methods and processes such as airbrushing combined with more conventional artistic techniques used to visualize the interests, aspirations, physical difficulties, and emotional habits of the individuals.

According to van Gelder Kunz, the aura portraits were never shown to the public because she did not feel ready to undertake a general study of the personal aura based on these portraits at the time. Over fifty-five years later, she decided there was more acceptance of the mind-body relationship, and a cultural context in which these works could be better appreciated.

While many of the portraits were published in a book titled "The Personal Aura,” in 1991, and credit was given to Donahoo, no other information on this collaboration exists.

Back to top ^

Artist Biography

Juanita Donahoo was born in Algona, Iowa, and went to art school in Chicago. In the early 1930s, Juanita settled in New York with her mother and brother. Donahoo’s collaboration with Dora van Gelder Kunz began in New York. By the 1940s, Juanita moved to Los Angeles, where she lectured at the Besant Hollywood Lodge. In 1941, she participated in the Index of American Design program of the Federal Art Project where she produced illustrations of objects found in California missions. Ten of these drawings are housed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. A member of the Theosophical Society from 1936 to 1980, Donahoo eventually made her home in Ojai, California, where she spent her later years in the Theosophical community called Krotona.

Back to top ^