One of Alaska's most beloved artists, Jules Dahlager is often associated with fellow painters Sydney Laurence, Eustace Ziegler, and Ted Lambert as part of the "Alaska Four."

Born in Brookings, Dakota Territory, Dahlager worked as a cartoonist and newspaperman in Washington State before moving with his wife to Cordova, Alaska in 1921 to work for the "Cordova Daily Times." He began to paint and soon developed his trademark style of palette knife work on small canvases. Using a wide array of different sized and shaped palette knives, Dahlager was able to achieve a broad variety of landscape, marine, and atmospheric effects while retaining a lively painterly surface in his works.

Dahlager was encouraged by both Ziegler and Laurence, as well as by the purchase of a number of his paintings by President Hoover and his entourage on a visit to Cordova. He continued his newspaper work when he moved to Ketchikan in 1929, but spent much of his time and energy on his art.

In addition to landscapes, he painted numerous portraits, among them many of Horse Creek Mary, the well-known Copper River Native woman also painted frequently by Eustace Ziegler, and Chief Johnson, a distinguished Tlingit elder in Ketchikan.