Post #785474 by tikicoma on Thu, Mar 29, 2018 2:57 PM

Nomeus, the Davis Leeteg of Tahiti book say's that this painting "Hina Rapa" was painted by leeteg at least 27 times and as far as I can tell he only painted it in the 24x34 inch size. His paintings just of heads were 20x24 as far as I've seen from the Davis galleries ad in 'Leeteg of Tahiti- Paintings from the Villa Velour' book. Leeteg also stated that some differences could be seen from one painting to the next. At some point Davis galleries started having "certified authentic copies" painted the ones I have are 14x18. As to these two you posted I'm pretty sure because of the size, face and the fact that there were 2 others along with it on ebay the other day (now pulled) that you could see a poorly done job of someone trying to remove the word copy from them. I suspect that the bottom one is a copy also because the teeth don't look right but I may be wrong about that one. The Davis copies have been said to have painted in Japan but the Philippines and even somewhere in China (Macau?) have also been suggested as the source. As to the possibility Leeteg may have remarked a print he sail he never used any sort of mechanical device, airbrush or projector to create his paintings, the original were all done by his hand.