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bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 11621
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On 2002-12-02 12:14, cynfulcynner wrote:
On 2002-12-02 11:10, martiki6 wrote:
Weren't these murals originally done for the 1939 World's Fair at Treasure Island?
Correct. These babys are one of my pet projects. Please keep me informed.
No, the guy who did theclassic Beachcomber menu cover (BOT, P68) copied several icons from the various Covarrubias murals, which were available complete as beautifully lithographed posters in a folder at the show in 1939. In later years these were used a lot in Polynesian restaurants as decor, and their icons were copied for menus and matchbooks. Check out the Hawaiian and Marquesan Tiki and the Samoan Tapa cloth on the Beachcomber menu and find them on the BOT end pages map by Covarrubias.
Ironically, only 5 of the six murals (Economy, Transportation, Flora And Fauna, Native Dwellings and People of the Pacific) hung in the S.F. port building all these years. The ONE, The Artforms of the Pacific, was "lost" while all of them were loaned to the New York Museum of Natural History in 1940. Though the Artforms map was one of the four maps that measured 15x24 feet, they were painted on 3x3 panels and thus easily stored .
What happend in New York in 1940? This to me is THE great art theft mystery of the 20th century....
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