There the autobiography ends and the legend begins. For in Tahiti he found an atmosphere so congenial and a police force so tolerant that he finally decided to take out French citizenship. “In America I would be in jail all the time,” he reasoned. “Here I am accepted for what I am.” He also loved the island for its crazy pattern of life. “Never bet on anything in Tahiti,” he wrote, “excepting that the sun sets in the west.”
During his first years in Tahiti he lived not on Mooréa but in Papeete, where his mother tried running a restaurant, but went broke. He spent his free time with a crowd of hard-drinking, wild-loving, hell-raising friends. He worked primarily as a sign painter but accepted any jobs that were offered, and lived miserably without one spare franc. When actual poverty was at hand, Mrs. Leeteg returned to the United States, but her son stayed on. He had not yet begun to paint on velvet.
The legend says, “One day, perhaps just after the daily rains had chased their hundred rainbows off to Bora Bora, Leeteg entered a store and, if he behaved in character, went at least so far as to chuck the salesgirl’s chin.
“ ‘Give me some monk’s cloth,’ he said. ‘I need it to paint on.’
“ ‘We’re all out of monk’s cloth,’ replied the girl, sure at first she had lost a sale.
“Then she remembered the commodity that was overly bountiful on her shelves and that the proprietor had told her to push.
“ ‘How about some velveteen?’ she said. ‘Could you paint on that?’
“Could he?… In time Leeteg was to stumble upon the technique that made his paintings live with the glow of human flesh.
“ ‘Stumble upon’ is not the precise term for what happened unless used in the sense that is applied to the manner in which a chemist discovers a new ‘wonder drug’ after countless hours of compounding chemicals, for Leeteg worked hard at perfecting his technique.
“One Frenchman in Tahiti, seeing some of Leeteg’s paintings placed on his terrace to dry, settled for a romantic answer to the question, ‘What is the secret to the method with which Leeteg mixed his paint?’
“ ‘I know what it is!’ the Frenchman exclaimed. ‘It is mixed with God’s own sun.’ ”
That’s how the legend says he got started.
Armed with a technique well suited to Polynesian subjects, Leeteg now faced the difficult job of creating a market for his work. In bars the velvets were popular and occasionally a drunk sailor would buy one for $4. Today those early Leetegs sell for $2,000, and it is fascinating to imagine the shock some sailor’s wife in Baltimore is going to get some day when she opens that trunk in the attic.
On a trip to the United States to bring back his mother, who would live the rest of his life with him in Tahiti, Leeteg paid his passage by working as a sign painter in Honolulu, where he also peddled his velvets, which no one seemed to want. His price was now $20 and he specialized in nudes, but he was not entirely committed to velvet, for when he won first prize at the Hawaiian Orchid Fanciers’ Show, it was for an oil painting of orchids done on canvas.
By 1938, on a later visit to Hawaii, he was an established velvet artist, but again he had to take a sign-painting job in order to live. During the Christmas rush of 1939, Leeteg’s boss called on him for a large Santa Claus.
“What’s Santa Claus look like?” the chunky artist asked.
“You know—Santa Claus.”
“Show me what he looks like and I’ll paint him,” Leeteg insisted, and so someone dug out a Santa Claus painted by the dean of illustrators of the time, J. C. Leyendecker. Leeteg grabbed the small picture and within a few hours produced a blow-up that was startling. An admiring fellow worker recalls, “It was better than Leyendecker himself had done. It looked as if Santa were going to speak. We put it in the lobby of the Waikiki Theater and kids thought it really was Santa.”
A man took Leeteg aside and said, “If you can paint like that, why do you paint signs?”
“I paint what I can make a living on,” Leeteg replied.
“But your velvets? Don’t they sell?”
“When velvets sell, I’ll paint velvets.”
Almost by accident, Leeteg picked up a devoted pair of patrons for this style of work. Mr. Wayne Decker, a happy, extroverted jeweler from Salt Lake City, was eleven generations descended from John Alden and Priscilla Mullens and an elder in the Mormon Church. His business having prospered wildly, he had formed the unlikely habit of carting his entire family—wife, three sons, two daughters—on junkets around the world, and on one memorable starlit evening he was dining with his entourage in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on the sands at Waikiki. He had just danced with Clara Inter, the performer famed under the name of “Hilo Hattie,” and was strolling down a corridor of shops. Under a spotlight in one of them was a painting on black velvet of the girl with whom he had just danced. She was in her garish costume as “the cockeyed mayor of Kaunakakai,” and her eyes seemed to be snapping and her lips laughing aloud.
Decker had to leave for Australia early next morning, but when he returned to Honolulu some months later, he eagerly sought out the shop, intending to purchase the painting. The shopkeeper only dimly remembered the piece. He did not know where it had gone, or even who had painted it.
Nearly a year later, Mr. and Mrs. Decker strolled ashore at Papeete. To their delight, the tourists found, hanging on the wall of a souvenir store, no less than fourteen paintings on black velvet, obviously by the artist who had rendered “Hilo Hattie.” Both were delighted, and especially admired a portrait of “Hina Rapa” in her big yellow hat.
The Deckers decided overnight that they must have this one to hang over their library desk back home in Salt Lake. They rushed ashore to make the great purchase. And when they entered the store, they saw that every one of the fourteen paintings was gone! Later they discovered that the proprietor of the Seven Seas night club on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles had made a special trip to Papeete to obtain these works as decorations for his club.
But Leeteg was asked to get in touch with the Deckers, and he did so. The first meeting of patron and artist was recounted by Mr. Decker himself. “A short, stocky chap in a wide straw hat disengaged himself from a group of people, and with a smile as wide as the hat he greeted me. ‘You must be Mr. Decker. Crawford told me when I found the loudest Hawaiian shirt I’d ever seen, it’d be you.’ I admitted the identity and invited him aboard.
“We visited for a couple of hours. He left the ship with five of my loudest shirts and all the loose money we had in the crowd. I don’t remember how much it might have been. The tears were running down his face. He said I was the first man who had really trusted him since he had been in Tahiti. He assured me I wouldn’t be sorry, that he’d outdo himself in doing another ‘Hina Rapa’ for us. He would send it to me when he was satisfied it was his very best.”
Eventually, the new painting arrived in Salt Lake City, along with five other fine examples of Leeteg’s portraiture on velvet. The Deckers were more enthusiastic than ever, and immediately sent a check with an order for at least ten paintings a year, at any price within reason. This arrangement lasted till Leeteg’s death, and the Deckers built up a collection of more than two hundred velvets, three fourths of which now are on show in their Salt Lake City home.
Leeteg survived as an artist through the encouragement and financial support of this couple from Utah, whom he had seen only briefly. It was the Deckers who provided the money with which Leeteg built his Mooréa home. They sent funds when Edgar’s mother had to go to Hawaii to recuperate from a near-fatal illness. It was the Deckers who commissioned the artist’s work through the lean years, and left a standing order: “Send us one of everything you paint.”
Although Decker reprimanded Leeteg whenever the quality of his work slipped or colors faded in transit, the Salt Lake City jeweler never wavered in his belief that he had discovered an artistic genius. He wrote shortly before Leeteg’s death: “Edgar, please know that to me you are the greatest living artist in the world.
I want everyone to see you as great as I do. I am very proud of your work and love nothing more than showing it to my friends. To me it is out of this world and I find my friends are equally impressed.”
The chance meeting with Decker assured Leeteg’s survival, but it was an accidental meeting with a much different kind of man that assured his fame. In the early 1930’s, while working as a sign painter in Honolulu, Leeteg met a tall, gangling, happy-go-lucky, tattooed submarine sailor named Barney Davis, who on shore leave played the accordion at the Princess Theater, where Leeteg’s company had quarters. The two were natural companions, for both liked bootleg beer, funny stories, women and music. Davis could simultaneously play Sobre las Olas on his accordion, accompany himself with one hand on a pipe organ, eat a ham sandwich, and drink a glass of foaming beer. This Leeteg considered just about tops in human accomplishment.
At this time Davis was unaware that Leeteg painted anything but signs, and for about fifteen years lost sight of the Tahiti artist; but when Davis opened a Honolulu art shop in 1947, he was pestered by sailors who wanted “one of those velvets like they have in the bar.” Davis went down into the rugged section of the city to inspect the velvets, which had already begun to cause a commotion in Hawaii. Once they had been traded to the barkeeper for drinks and sandwiches, and they still made a handsome display above the mirror. The artist? No one knew where he lived.
Then a Mormon missionary returning from Tahiti—where that church has always been strong—wandered into the art shop and unrolled two fine velvets, better than anything Davis had seen so far. The missionary knew Leeteg and that afternoon Davis rushed off an air-mail letter containing $500 with instructions for Leeteg to send regular shipments of his work.
The business relationship that resulted was notable for two reasons. Davis sold velvets like mad and paid Leeteg large sums of money, and Leeteg in return sent Davis long letters in which the most intimate aspects of life were discussed. That we know so much about this inflammable artist is due to his outpourings to Barney Davis.
His first letter set the style for all that followed: “Maybe I’d better give you the straight about the Leeteg rumors in Hawaii, although the publicity I get from the adverse rumors seems to help rather than hinder the sale of velvets.
“As long as I’m rutting and drinking I’m not dead, so that rumor is easy to kill.
“I’ve never been in Chicago and was never a bum or a beachcomber. But let it go at that. I don’t mind being a bum and/or a beachcomber if it increases my sales.
“I’m not a dopehead either though I’ve visited dens with tourists on slumming parties. However, all good artists from Tahiti are supposed to be inspired by drugs.
“I don’t use spray gun, or projectors, or stencils or any mechanical means in producing my velvets and this dastardly lie you should correct with your clients.
“I worked as pattern maker, designer, and pictorial painter for Foster & Kleiser Outdoor Advertising Co., but did no lettering then. Was not good enough at it. But did all Tahiti’s signs and decorating until five years ago when I quit to devote all time to velvets. I also did posters for Waikiki Theater and helped decorate the Toyo Theater. Ordinary artist’s oil paints are used on velvets and applied with ordinary artist’s brushes.
“The truest or nearest to the truth of all the rumors you listed is that the models are my wives. Technically I’m not married to any of ’em but I do lay a goodly number.… Am really married—much to my regret—but am separated from her now.
“Tell me all this—I like it. Lot of the more malicious lies originate with a guy … who once lived here and is trying to imitate my velvets in Hawaii now with zero success.”
The last phase of Leeteg’s life was now beginning. He painted velvets as rapidly as his energies permitted and airmailed them to Davis, who sold them at increasingly high prices. More important, so far as the Leeteg legend is concerned, Davis launched a publicity campaign that will probably never subside in the Pacific.
He made many smart moves. First he suggested that Leeteg sign all pictures “Leeteg, Tahiti,” and from then on in both advertising and conversation Davis referred to his artist in that manner, or more simply as The Master. He also invented the tradition, afterward adopted by many purchasers, of invariably writing BLACK VELVET in capital letters. He bombarded Honolulu papers with stories about Leeteg, printed handsome brochures in which the paper looked and felt like velvet, reproduced the more popular Leeteg subjects in superb photographs that sold in large batches at $15 each, and started referring offhand to Rembrandt, Goya, Rubens and Hals when seeking some basis of comparison for The Master’s work. And that Leeteg was the inheritor of Gauguin’s mantle he took for granted and got the public to do the same. It was Davis who coined the phrase, “The American Gauguin.”
It was a good, clean relationship, one that made Leeteg rich in both money and accolade. There were bickerings about price—Leeteg wanted a bigger cut of the profits—but they always subsided and Davis acquired more than two hundred velvets. Early in the life of the arrangement Davis turned all bookkeeping over to an accountant, who saw to it that Leeteg got paid regularly. Since the artist had been careless and unbusinesslike in his previous sales, handing his work over to any tourist who said, “I’ll sell these for you,” and since he had lost thousands of dollars on people whom he never heard from again, he appreciated Davis’ honesty. “You and God are all the allies I need,” he wrote, and his appreciation for what the Honolulu dealer accomplished was expressed almost weekly, and in moving words.
He also relied on Davis for artistic guidance, and although Davis spoke like the immortal dealer—“Send me what will sell”—he also warned whenever quality slumped; and Leeteg acknowledged this: “Apology for feeling miffed at your letter saying the seven velvets which finally arrived were below my standard. Thanks for standing up and telling me something that is for my own good. I really thought those seven were above par and they looked fine when I sent them—that’s why I could not savvy your dissatisfaction with them—until I found out what was wrong—the colors sank into the velvet dye.… You are right as rain about the necessity of my concentrating on the luminous qualities in my velvet. With my head full of art ideas I was getting sidetracked from the one feature that puts velvet in a class by itself—their luminosity. I promise to stay on the right track hereafter.”
One of the greatest pleasures enjoyed by Leeteg in this relationship was Davis’ glowing faith that Leeteg was the greatest painter of contemporary times. At no time did Davis waver in this opinion, and one of the authors of this book can testify to the fire with which Davis, then unknown to him, telephoned in 1950, shouting, “Christ, you’ve got to come down here right away! I’ve uncovered an artist who’s as good as Rembrandt.” Occupied with other things, the Writer did not obey the summons, which was repeated in 1951: “Look, goddamit, this man Leeteg is more exciting than Gauguin. He’s a new Rubens, believe me.” By 1952 Davis was impatient and growled, “Look, you sonofabitch, these velvets are only a block from where you’re sitting. Come over and see the new Goya.” Again it proved impossible and in 1953 Davis reported simply, “He’s dead. You waited too long and now he’s with the immortals.”
In 1954 Davis launched a writing campaign that finally lured the writer into his handsome gallery, which had been converted into a shrine for Edgar Leeteg. There were velvets, for $5,000, Leeteg letters, a handsome photograph in color of the Leeteg outhouse, color snapshots of the artist raising hell with one of his models and fine reproductions of Leeteg originals.
Some of this overpowering belief rubbed off on Leeteg, and while there is excellent written evidence that he positively refused ever to think of himself in terms of Rembrandt or Rubens, he did start speaking of himself as the American Gauguin. In 1952 Davis visited Tahiti and one resident reported: “It was like a cyclone. He played his accordion. Any number anybody requested, he played Sobre las Olas. But what set Tahiti agog was his opinion of Leeteg. We’d never thought
much of him down here but Davis announced flatly that he was as good as Rembrandt and the hottest selling artist of modern times. Tahiti is still gasping. As somebody said the other night, ‘My God! Suppose Davis is right! Suppose Leeteg really is good!’ ”
There were, of course, adverse aspects of the relationship. At one time Leeteg wrote: “Will do several for you of 127 … and then discontinue this number as my photo is faded with age and every time I strain my eyes on such a one—or one too small a copy as 108—I have a little less eyesight, so better take my word for it when I say I can’t do a certain number, although I’ll take a chance on eyestrain for just a couple more. The more I abuse my eyes the sooner I’ll be blind. Take your choice. I don’t give a damn.”
But shortly before his death Leeteg summarized his business experience with Davis: “Am fixed fine financially now. Limit the January remittance to three hundred maximum and lay the rest in your safe for me.” The fact is that Leeteg was barely scraping by on Wayne Decker’s subsidy when he established relations with Davis. He wrote that in 1946 his velvets were selling for $25. When he died, some were bringing over $7,000. For this transformation Barney Davis was largely responsible, and it was free use of the names of Rembrandt, Hals, Gauguin, and Rubens that fortified his customers in accepting the high prices he named. After all, if a millionaire who knows nothing about art is contemplating an outlay of thousands for something he could have bought for fifty dollars a few years back, a word like Rembrandt is most reassuring.
The Leeteg legend had other facets that insure its survival. His most famous model also happened to be the girl he loved throughout his life. She was a lively, adorable island child whose winsome little face has become fairly well known in many parts of the world. Her arrival in the Leeteg household was the best thing that ever happened to the artist emotionally; her forced departure became a deep, inconsolable tragedy. When she had gone a friend reported, “Long ago Leeteg confided to me that he recognized as the most tragic circumstance of his life his failure to find the right woman.… Isn’t it indeed tragic to think that while, perhaps, there exists for most of us a true mate, yet such are the mischances of life that in the majority of cases we are destined to miss each other like ‘ships that pass in the night.’ ” She had been the girl for Leeteg, but he had allowed her to be driven from his home, and for the rest of his life he paid a heavy penalty.