Post #201238 by bigbrotiki on Fri, Dec 2, 2005 10:48 AM

The world of Black Velvet artists (except Leeteg) is a big "black hole". Other than him there is Charlie McPhee, known through the classic black velvet documentary "Velvet Dreams". Also, I once visited David Voss in Oahu (Tiki News #11), he did the velvets that hung at the Tahitian Lanai....and was there not recently a post about the amazing Minnie's Modesto paintings?
..Just was reminded by the recent thread on the "Tiki" lounge in Modesto that they were done by "Tyree", a very prolific velvet artist who would be worth investigating.

After Don The Beachcomber and Trader Vic's bars sported Leetegs, the other Tiki temples who followed them had to have velvet nudes too, even if not by the "American Gauguin" himself. My reference to La Visse as a "student" of Leeteg is purely ironic and stems from the fact that many artists that worked in Leeteg's wake to cash in on his success were advertised to have been students of the master ( a la "It's not a Leeteg, but it's from one of his STUDENTS!") though he never really taught his art as far as I know.

It's just a Polynesian pop cliche I used, and I really don't know who "La Visse" was, or whatever his real name might have been.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2005-12-05 11:03 ]