1. Edgar Leeteg (1904 - February 7, 1953)

American born artist who specialized in black velvet paintings.

Edgar Leeteg started his career as a commercial artist, creating billboard ads for a Sacramento, California-based advertising agency. In 1930, Leeteg opted to take a vacation, and chose Tahiti since it was the only trip he could afford at the time.

Leeteg's first impressions of Tahiti were mixed. He loved the island although he was less than impressed by the people. He wrote 'I can't say that my first acquaintance with Tahiti made me vow to return some day... Adding up and balancing the pleasure and the pain, I did not then care if I ever saw the place again.'

Although Leeteg returned to the United States, he was strangely drawn to the islands. An acquaintance he made back in the islands informed him of a job painting signs for a theater then being built. The artist, unhappy in his current job, took the offer and moved to Tahiti.

During his years in Tahiti, Leeteg scratched out a living. In his spare time, Leeteg focused on developing his skills painting on black velvet, a format that dated back to the 14th Century, but had long fallen out of favor. Leeteg sold his paintings to passing sailors and visitors, but he did not gain much of a following until a vacationing jeweler named Wayne Decker saw some of Leeteg's paintings in a junk shop. Decker missed purchasing one of the paintings in the shop, and he spent much of the remainder of his trip looking for the artist. Word got to Leeteg just before Decker's ship left port.

Decker paid Leeteg $200 to make a painting for him. The jeweler was so impressed, he commissioned Leeteg to create ten works a year for an indefinite time. Eventually, Decker came to own more than 200 velvet paintings.

Edgar Leeteg's life on Tahiti was a boisterous one filled with drinking and womanizing. He eventually came to be called the 'American Gauguin', as much for his lifestyle as for his works.

A drunken Edgar Leeteg was killed in a motorcycle accident on February 7, 1953.


Updated July 16, 2004