Hawaiian Village or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Microfilm

I recently acquired original vintage artwork of a Hawaiian Village menu I presume was never produced. The menu mock-up was done in colored pencil and appears to be an unfinished piece with some white corrective ink near the bottom. I was told the artist is Dwight Lee and he worked for the Tampa Tribune and must have done some freelanced work also. I'd be curious if anyone has seen the menu.

Seemed like the time to do a little search for the artist in the Tampa Tribune archives at the downtown library. Found out that the Trib doesn't index that far, but St. Pete Times does and can be searched using Google. Second entry on Google came up with an ad from October 15, 1963. Things are dark hard to see on the Google's news search, grabbed the microfilm and made this copy.

Very stoked to find a match and can even see where the artist decided to crop the wahine's dress. There are also some great
ads and artwork from that time period to be found. Here are some
other items:

Google searches for St. Petersburg Times:

Oct. 15 1963-HV ad is found with artwork-including Outrigger Inn

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BRUOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3XwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7073,3007144&dq=hawaiian+village

Dec.29, 1971 – HV ad and New Years blerb
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_wINAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zWADAAAAIBAJ&pg=7240,3673227&dq=hawaiian+village

March 10, 1970 – HV bartender pimp?
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sPcNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_3sDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5835,8898258&dq=hawaiian+village

Sept. 23, 1970 – Trader Franks
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kPENAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qXUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6715,1258080&dq=trader+frank%27s

The Google newspaper link doesn't save the page, you'll need to
put Hawaiian Village in advanced search box and St. Petersburg
Times as source. The '63 ad is on pg. 71.

Nice work Señor! oh wait it's Senior. Nice work Senior!

Oops.

[ Edited by: Bora Boris 2008-10-28 11:48 ]

Thanks, just don't call me late for the mai tai. Which reminds me,
the artwork looks similar to the Beachcomber mai tai mix label on
pg. 168 of BOT.

Excellent post, senioraqua. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Your research is much appreciated.

I loved seeing the Heilman's Beachcomber ad too. My favorite was the Trader Frank's piece. "Pacific potable" is such a delightful phrase.

I like the phrase "Tried to set up a female beverage agent in business as a prostitute." :wink:

Great find and good research, now you can date that art. I always felt that the cover of the drink menu that is out there, on the postcard and menu too, looked somewhat 70s in style:

That's why I used the Beauty and the Beast one in Tiki Modern, (though it was ripped off from an American Cruise Lines menu cover :) )
That must have been quite a swinging place in its day. I always loved the Shangri-La bar back statue posted on Mimi's site, holding the mugs on its multiple hands. What a cool way to display the various Tiki mugs they offered drinks in:

Very cool, micro-fish is fun. Here is a menu from the HV that is closer to the sketch, but still no cigar. I think I have seen that menu one somewhere out there before though.

DC

After looking at the HV ad again, it seems like I have a 1st draft
that was done in pencil and the 2nd draft is a more polished piece done in paint. I'm no artist, but maybe the penciled draft was used to create the design and work with the shading and skin tone. I took
the art out of the frame to see the complete work. Looks like she's had a nose job done.

Here is a completed piece painted by Dwight Lee for Bahia Beach.

On 2008-10-28 23:40, Dustycajun wrote:
Very cool, micro-fish is fun. Here is a menu from the HV that is closer to the sketch, but still no cigar. I think I have seen that menu one somewhere out there before though.

DC

Probably on Arkiva Tropika, in this form:

Or in Tiki Modern:

The two first ones are both bad versions of this cover, which, as I was saying above, was ripped off by the Hawaiian Village from a menu cover done in the early 50s for American PRESIDENT (I left that out above) Cruise Lines. I do not own the original, but I have another one from the series which clearly shows the same style and concept:

They had NO name printed on the front, which made them suitable for framing --and easy to rip off. :D
Here is the name of the original artist:

And if that isn't enough menus for one establishment, there is a Leeteg
inspired version.

I also have a token for a free "American Drink".

I guess the "American Drink" would exclude the Hawaiian Eye that
comes with a free Polynesian Mystery mug.

On 2008-10-28 11:02, senioraqua wrote:
I recently acquired original vintage artwork of a Hawaiian Village menu I presume was never produced. The menu mock-up was done in colored pencil and appears to be an unfinished piece with some white corrective ink near the bottom. I was told the artist is Dwight Lee and he worked for the Tampa Tribune and must have done some freelanced work also. I'd be curious if anyone has seen the menu.

Seemed like the time to do a little search for the artist in the Tampa Tribune archives at the downtown library. Found out that the Trib doesn't index that far, but St. Pete Times does and can be searched using Google. Second entry on Google came up with an ad from October 15, 1963. Things are dark hard to see on the Google's news search, grabbed the microfilm and made this copy.

Very stoked to find a match and can even see where the artist decided to crop the wahine's dress. There are also some great
ads and artwork from that time period to be found. Here are some
other items:

Google searches for St. Petersburg Times:

Oct. 15 1963-HV ad is found with artwork-including Outrigger Inn

Dec.29, 1971 – HV ad and New Years blerb

March 10, 1970 – HV bartender pimp?

Sept. 23, 1970 – Trader Franks

Fixed the links to be clickable

Nice job, thanks Swanky.

Just ran across this post, and thought I'd add something to the discussion of the illustrator for the "borrowed" image. That was Don Clever, a San Francisco based artist.

I tried to find out more info about Don Clever a while ago, with little success, but made a little webpage here. However, it's noteworthy that Mr. Clever was also the illustrator for this VERY beloved menu cover for the Lanai in San Mateo!

Sorry if this runs a bit offtopic, but it seems related since the HV cover directly reused the American President Lines art.

-Randy

Found an article on the artist of the HV drawing named, Dwight Lee, who
was known as "the Muffin Man" by his neighbors. Quite talented for someone
with tunnel vision.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/27/Hillsborough/By_baking_muffins__he.shtml

On 2008-10-28 11:02, senioraqua wrote:
I recently acquired original vintage artwork of a Hawaiian Village menu I presume was never produced. The menu mock-up was done in colored pencil and appears to be an unfinished piece with some white corrective ink near the bottom. I was told the artist is Dwight Lee and he worked for the Tampa Tribune and must have done some freelanced work also. I'd be curious if anyone has seen the menu.

Seemed like the time to do a little search for the artist in the Tampa Tribune archives at the downtown library. Found out that the Trib doesn't index that far, but St. Pete Times does and can be searched using Google. Second entry on Google came up with an ad from October 15, 1963. Things are dark hard to see on the Google's news search, grabbed the microfilm and made this copy.

Very stoked to find a match and can even see where the artist decided to crop the wahine's dress.

On 2010-12-14 10:07, senioraqua wrote:
Found an article on the artist of the HV drawing named, Dwight Lee, who
was known as "the Muffin Man" by his neighbors. Quite talented for someone
with tunnel vision.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/27/Hillsborough/By_baking_muffins__he.shtml

Wow, what a story. Who knew. The Muffin Man...

There's a story behind every piece of ephemera. Not like that one, necessarily, but something.

The Muffin Man had some true dedication. I'd like to get a copy
of the autobiography he wrote. For grins, here's some more Dwight Lee artwork.

"No, I Can't Swim, But I Can Wade Pretty Far Out."

Found the inspirational photo for the President Cruise Lines and Hawaiian Village menus. The wahine's doppleganger is on the cover of an April 1948 issue of Holiday magazine.