Edgar Leeteg

“Black Velvet", the song, is a tribute to Elvis Presley, often painted on black velvet. Canadian songwriters Christopher Ward and David Tyson wrote the song, initially recorded by Alannah Myles in 1990.

As was the case with other popular artists such as Tretchikoff and Margaret Keane, Leeteg was never accepted by the art establishment. He had to fight to have his paintings allowed into the US as "fine art" rather than as a "craft" which had a much higher rate of import duty. Of his eight most popular subjects, seven were copied from photographs by other men. This caused many plagiarism disputes but at that time copyright had to be registered to be protected, and few photographers went to the trouble and expense of submitting their work to the copyright office. One of those subjects was a famous painting Head of Christ by Warner Sallman. This work was protected and he was forced to stop painting his copies publicly but continued to do so clandestinely on request. After his death, Leeteg's paintings rose in value to as much as $20,000 in the early 1960s but have subsequently declined in value considerably. Nevertheless, he has continued to have his ardent admirers.

Edgar Leeteg died in 1953 in a motorcycle crash in Papeete at the age of 49 following a party at Les Tropiques resort. He had been suffering from a strain of venereal disease resistant to all antibiotics discovered up to that time. A close friend of his was reported by a Frenchwoman living in Punaauia to have released this information to the people of the islands with the advice that their women stay away from him. He was buried in Papeete in the family crypt of American friend Lew Hirshon. His mother Bertha was too ill to travel from Moorea to Tahiti for the funeral. Later, his body moved to a small cemetery east of Papeete, where Jackie and his mother were buried.11

Leeteg's best work was done between the years 1938 and 1953. He lived in Cook's Bay (Paopao), Moorea, using exotic women of the island as his models that he would find in the bars of Papeete, such as Quinn's Tahitian Hut. His main subject was beautiful Polynesian women, and he painted them amidst their background, their culture and their history. The eroticism, color and detail of these paintings made him famous.

Leeteg was the son of a butcher and the grandson of a German grave sculptor. His great-grandfather was an architect; the name was originally Lütig. When he was sixteen he went to work for his uncle in Little Rock, Arkansas, and later worked picking cotton in Louisiana, as foundry worker in Illinois, a cowboy in Texas and odd jobs in Alaska. At the age of 22, Leeteg worked as a billboard painter and sign writer for a large outdoor advertising company, Foster & Kleiser, in Sacramento, California, before the depression made conditions difficult. He was foreman with the company, and the other workers resented him, work being limited. They felt that since he was a bachelor (he had been married twice), their economic needs exceeded his. He had been to Tahiti on vacation in 1930 and when a contact there invited him to return with a job offer, he accepted it, after discussing the economic problems in the US with his mother Bertha (who agreed that prospects were dismal). With a small inheritance from his grandfather in Germany, Leeteg and his mother moved to Tahiti in 1933 with a few brushes and some paint stolen from the sign company. At first he worked as a sign-painter for theatres and cinemas but barely made a living. His mother ran a restaurant, but went broke and returned to the US. Edgar stayed and took whatever work he could find. Using the island women as models, he sold paintings to bars and visiting tourists. He tried various media including wood and cloth, but finally settled on black velvet with astounding success.

Edgar William Leeteg (April 13, 1904 East St. Louis, Illinois – February 7, 1953 Papeete, Tahiti) was an American painter often considered the father of American velvet painting. He immigrated to French Polynesia in 1933, where he spent the rest of his life painting the local life on black velvet.

10. Hustace, James J.  Painters and Etchers of Hawaii-A Biographical Collection-1780-2018, Library of Congress (C) 11. Cook, CJ and Ashley, Michael: Leeteg, Babes, Bars, Beaches, and Black Velvet Art. South Pacific Dreams Publishing, 2021