A velvet painting is a type of painting distinguished by the use of velvet (usually black velvet) as the support, in place of canvas, paper, or similar materials. The velvet provides an especially dark background against which colors stand out.
Velvet painting is an ancient[ when? ] technique, and took on a new popularity in the United States in the late 20th century. [1]
Black velvet paintings originated in Kashmir, the homeland of the fabric. These original paintings were generally religious and portrayed the icons of the Caucasus region which were painted by Russian Orthodox priests. [2] Marco Polo and others introduced black velvet paintings to Western Europe, and some of these early works still hang in the Vatican Museums.[ citation needed ]
The paintings are widely sold in rural America, and frequently have kitsch themes. They often depict images of Elvis Presley (see Velvet Elvis), Dale Earnhardt, John Wayne, Jesus, Native Americans, dogs playing poker, wolves, and cowboys, and the colors are often bright and vivid to contrast the dark velvet. They can also include more exotic or avant-garde themes.[ citation needed ]
Edgar Leeteg (1904–1953), often considered the father of American velvet painting, did his best works between 1933 and 1953. [3] [4]
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico was a center of velvet painting in the 1970s. [5] A displaced Georgia farmboy, Doyle Harden, was the pioneer who created an enormous factory, where velvets were turned out by the thousands by artists sitting in studios. [6] One artist would paint one piece of the picture, then slide the velvet along to the next artist, who would add something else. Velvet paintings mass-produced by hand in this manner fueled the boom in velvet paintings in the 1970s in the United States. Edgar Leeteg has been called "the father of American black velvet kitsch". [7] [8]
In Portland, Oregon, a museum devoted solely to velvet paintings, the Velveteria, operated from late 2005 to January 2010. [9] It reopened in December 2013 in the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. [10]
Kitsch is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, gratuitous, or of banal taste.
Odd Nerdrum is a Norwegian figurative painter, born in Sweden, and considered to be one of the greatest living classical figurative painters. His work is held by museums worldwide. Themes and style in Nerdrum's work reference anecdote and narrative. Primary influences by the painters Rembrandt and Caravaggio help place his work in direct conflict with the abstraction and conceptual art considered acceptable in much of Norway. Nerdrum creates six to eight paintings a year. They include still life paintings of small, everyday objects, portraits and self-portraits, and large paintings allegorical and apocalyptic in nature. The figures in Nerdrum's paintings are often dressed as if from another time and place.
Events from the year 1986 in art.
A Velvet Elvis is a painting of Elvis Presley on velvet. It typically represents a costumed torso of Elvis holding a microphone, painted on black velvet. This iconic velvet painting is considered an archetypical example of kitsch.
Gene Davis was an American Color Field painter known especially for his paintings of vertical stripes of color.
Edgar William Leeteg 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.
Mickalene Thomas is a contemporary African-American visual artist best known as a painter of complex works using rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Thomas's collage work is inspired from popular art histories and movements, including Impressionism, Cubism, Dada and the Harlem Renaissance. Her work draws from Western art history, pop art and visual culture to examine ideas around femininity, beauty, race, sexuality, and gender.
Manuel John Neri Jr. was an American sculptor who is recognized for his life-size figurative sculptures in plaster, bronze, and marble. In Neri's work with the figure, he conveys an emotional inner state that is revealed through body language and gesture. Since 1965 his studio was in Benicia, California; in 1981 he purchased a studio in Carrara, Italy, for working in marble. Over four decades, beginning in the early 1970s, Neri worked primarily with the same model, Mary Julia Klimenko, creating drawings and sculptures that merge contemporary concerns with Modernist sculptural forms.
Pennsylvania Impressionism was an American Impressionist movement of the first half of the 20th century that was centered in and around Bucks County, Pennsylvania, particularly the town of New Hope. The movement is sometimes referred to as the "New Hope School" or the "Pennsylvania School" of landscape painting.
Hans Gustav Burkhardt was a Swiss-American abstract expressionist artist.
Martin Wong was a Chinese-American painter of the late 20th century. His work has been described as a meticulous blend of social realism and visionary art styles. Wong's paintings often explored multiple ethnic and racial identities, exhibited cross-cultural elements, demonstrated multilingualism, and celebrated his queer sexuality.
Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat was an African-American artist, dancer, and educator. She gained prominence in the 1940s for her art, performance and work to foster intercultural understanding and appreciation.
Andrzej Zieliński is an American painter.
James Lavadour is an American painter and printmaker. A member of the Walla Walla tribe, he is known for creating large panel sets of landscape paintings. Lavadour is the co-founder of the Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts.
I believe that a painting must stand up on its own without explanation. I think of myself as an abstract action painter. I just happen to see landscape in the abstract events of paint. - James Lavadour
The Velveteria Epicenter of Art Fighting Cultural Deprivation, or Velveteria is a museum located in Los Angeles, California, dedicated to velvet paintings. Originally opened in 2005 in Portland, Oregon, the establishment houses hundreds of paintings from Caren Anderson and Carl Baldwin's personal collection of over 2,000 pieces, and is reportedly the only one of its kind. The Velveteria closed in Portland in January 2010 due to financial difficulties and the couple's relocation to Southern California. It was reopened in Chinatown, Los Angeles in 2013.
Arnold J. Kemp is an American artist who works in painting, print, sculpture, and poetry. Kemp received a BA/BFA from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and an MFA from Stanford University.
Louise Crow was an American painter best known for her portraits of Pueblo Indians. She worked in oils and watercolors, and with a wide variety of subjects including landscapes, Northwest scenes of rugged mountains, seascapes, and portraits of such historical figures as Ezra Meeker, a pioneer who traveled the Oregon Trail. Her technique was crisp and clean and feels contemporary despite her working nearly one hundred years ago. Much of her work, which has been a challenge to locate, concentrated on California and Southwest themes. Institutions that own her include the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Museum and History and Industry and the Washington State Governor’s Mansion.
Georgia O'Keeffe made a number of Red Canna paintings of the canna lily plant, first in watercolor, such as a red canna flower bouquet painted in 1915, but primarily abstract paintings of close-up images in oil. O'Keeffe said that she made the paintings to reflect the way she herself saw flowers, although others have called her depictions erotic, and compared them to female genitalia. O'Keeffe said they had misconstrued her intentions for doing her flower paintings: "Well – I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower – and I don't."
Many artworks related to the Black Lives Matter movement were created in Portland, Oregon, United States, during local protests over the murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans. Oregon Arts Watch contextualized the artistic works, stating that a "whitewashed pre-COVID lens" on American life, which obscured systemic racism, had been "cracked", and describing artists' response to racial violence being brought into the public eye was a "marathon, not a sprint".
George Johanson is a painter, printmaker, and ceramic tile artist. Johanson studied at the Museum Art School in Portland, Oregon, with further study in New York as well as London. He taught at the Museum Art School for 25 years until his retirement from teaching in 1980.
