C.J. Cook's Blog

Tyree: Master of Velvet Art

In art, evolution and experimentation drive the creation of breathtaking masterpieces. One artist who exemplifies this journey is Tyree, whose transition from oils on board to silk velvet in the 1960s marked a pivotal moment in his career. This blog post explores Tyree’s artistic evolution, his unique medium, and the legacy he left behind.

A Velvet Transformation

In the early 1960s, Tyree was at a crossroads in his artistic journey. His oil-on-board paintings, once marketable, were becoming increasingly difficult to sell. During his time in Guam, he first heard of Edgar Leeteg’s mesmerizing black velvet art. While Tyree likely saw Leeteg’s pieces in Tiki bars and the Davis Gallery in Honolulu, he never had the chance to meet the artist, who had passed away in 1953.

Yet, the allure of velvet as a canvas was undeniable. Tyree decided to make the switch, painting exclusively on silk velvet, a medium known for its luxurious texture and unique sheen. This change endeared his art to some collectors but also distanced him from traditional art galleries and museums.

The Allure of Velvet

Painting on silk velvet is no easy feat. The material is made of two pieces of woven silk separated to form a pile about 3 mm long. Tyree used French silk velvet, a costly but exquisite choice. The texture of velvet closely resembles the texture of natural objects, making it an intimate medium. Birds and animals, soft to the touch, found a new dimension in Tyree’s velvet paintings.

However, working with velvet presented its unique challenges. The black dye in velvet significantly impacted the chemistry of other pigments, altering colors in unexpected ways. Yet, this challenge did not deter Tyree. He experimented with a unique technique, applying thin layers of color in a varnish emulsion over time, gradually painting the velvet nap from the backing to the surface.

A Legacy of Velvet Art

Tyree’s transition to velvet marked a turning point in his career. His unique style set him apart from artists like Leeteg, who often painted portraits that stood alone on black velvet. In contrast, Tyree’s works featured figures as focal elements in vibrant tropical scenes, capturing the essence of Hawaii’s natural beauty.

The Tyree family played an integral role in supporting the artist’s journey, willingly relocating to different places to accommodate his creative pursuits. Their dedication and willingness to embrace change showcased their unwavering support for their beloved artist and father.

In conclusion, Tyree’s journey from oils on board to silk velvet was a testament to his artistic evolution. The allure of velvet as a canvas allowed him to create depth, texture, and vitality in his art, captivating collectors while challenging traditional art institutions. His legacy as a master of velvet art lives on, and his ability to transform a challenging medium into a canvas of unparalleled beauty continues to inspire artists and art enthusiasts today.

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Ralph Burke Tyree: Four Years in Hawaii and then back to California

Hawaiian Beauty by Tyree, Oil on board.

With his employment completed in Guam, the Tyree family headed by ocean liner to Hawaii in early 1955. As Mark Twain noted, Hawaii is “The loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean.” Tyree wanted to see this for himself.

In Hawaii, Tyree became a full-time artist, and his career took off as his work became popular with tourists. His primary medium remained oil on board. Again, for subject matter, he relied on Hawaii’s cultural diversity and the natural beauty of its female models to augment his paintings. Tyree’s enchanting photo-real nudes of the South Pacific were now available for sailors, tourists, and art lovers to purchase. Many Japanese tourists in the sixties would buy his art. This was, of course, if their wives and girlfriends allowed them to decorate the walls of their homes with it. For two years on the island of Oahu, Tyree produced many paintings of beautiful works but still had time to relax with dear Margo.

On November 11, 1957, their fifth child and only daughter, Marda, was born at Kapiolani Hospital in Honolulu. Son Greg recalls the challenges of bringing this first girl into the family. “It was in Oahu that my sister Marda was born. I was agitated because she was a girl. It broke up us four boys, who everybody fawned over. ‘Oh, look at those four boys with such beautiful eyes!’ That was the constant comment. As soon as I held her [Marda], I dropped my disdain.”

Margo and Tyree enjoining wine.

Hawaii was a rough place to be a white kid going to school with the locals. Greg remembers that they lived in two different homes and had to walk about two and a half miles to school. “Native Hawaiians constantly harassed us. We were Holies.” Every school had a hierarchy of bullies. “Bull Number One could beat up every kid in school, and eventually, I had to fight Bull Number Three. After it ended in a draw, they left us [the Tyree boys] alone.”

In early 1958, their more than six years away from the mainland ended, and they returned to Modesto, California. The following year, in 1959, Hawaii would become the 50th state of the USA.

The Tyree family never owned a home; they just rented. Owning a house would have interfered with exploring, plus they never had enough money to buy one anyway. Tyree painted long hours, seven days a week. He was driven by a passion to express beauty using his brushes while also trying to care for his family, a wife, and now five children. He was a quiet man who said little. Still, according to his daughter Marda, he became enthusiastic when discussing his art and paintings.

Besides being an artist, he was an exacting carpenter. He made many frames, remodeled their rental homes, and made sheds and outbuildings. He had great fun building for his children. He made them forts, tree houses, and once a giant wooden tower they could vault off with a trapeze, like circus acrobats. He also taught the kids how to pole vault, high jump, and the nuisances of his favorite apparatus, the giant swing.

An ominous event occurred soon after their return to California. In June of 1958, while out for a walk, Ralph developed severe chest pain. Abiding by his “show no pain and don’t complain” rules, Tyree walked to the nearby hospital. Surprisingly, at age thirty-six, he was diagnosed with a heart attack, the first of three. He was still in the hospital when he celebrated his thirty-seventh birthday. Of course, even there, he painted his fellow patients while recuperating. He was a tireless artist, addicted to his work. The treatment for his heart was to “slow down and rest for a month.” No precipitating cause was found for his heart condition. This was in 1958. The Tyree patriarch and adventure leader was vulnerable and at risk for more heart-related issues. A haunting fear engulfed Margo and the children. For Tyree, it just meant he had to continue painting, work hard, and go where his desires would take him.

Margo was sometimes his model.[image error]

Ralph Burke Tyree, an Artist’s Early Years

Ralph Burke Tyree, Enlistment Photo, U.S. Marine Corps. January 27, 1942, U.S. Marine Archives, Courtesy of Jeremy Edward Shiok

Ralph Burke Tyree was born in Irvine, Kentucky, on June 30, 1921. When Tyree was one, the family moved from the central valley of California to the town of Delhi, about twenty miles south of Modesto.

As a young lad, Tyree loved to paint and read adventure stories by authors such as Jack London and Zane Grey. He dreamt of touring the South Pacific as these writers did. Athletics and art would dominate his spare time after entering high school in 1934. He was good at both, but art most intrigued him. So, after high school, Tyree attended junior college in Modesto, California, majoring in art.

On July 19, 1942, Private Tyree and his fellow Marines were deployed to American Samoa. He was initially a rifleman in the Corps, but, fortunately for him, the Marine officers recognized his artistic talents three months later and reassigned him as “Draftsman” for making maps before his designation was changed again to “Sign Painter.” In this role, Tyree’s artistic skills caught the eye of his commander, General Charles Price. Liking the young private, Price changed his title to “General Price’s Portrait Painter” at the headquarters of the Samoan Area Defense Group. Tyree’s new responsibilities included:

Creating morale-boosting murals in the officer’s mess hall.Illustrating menus.Painting portraits of the officers and their wives.Other artistic endeavors.Tyree painting an officer’s wife in his Samoan Studio. 1943, Tyree Family

All this painting quickly improved his skill set. He was required to paint portraits of the officers’ loved ones back home. Near Commander Price’s office, Tyree set up a studio for generating these portraits, usually adorning the ladies’ hair with flowers.

During his two-year stint in Samoa, Tyree fell in love with the people and islands of the South Pacific. Among so much destruction and death, he saw beauty. It was at this time that he began to dabble with animal sketches. The last figure shows a pencil drawing of water buffalos pulling his fellow Marines in a Samoan cart, which was included in the book Marines at War, edited by Aimee Crane and published in 1943.

Beasts, Men and God, Ralph Burke Tyree, Pencil,1943, Pencil[image error]

Beauty in the Beast Event at Warwick’s Bookstore in La Jolla on November 30

On Thursday, November 30th at 7:30 pm, Warwick’s Bookstore in La Jolla will host C.J. Cook as he discusses and signs his new book, Beauty in the Beast: Flora, Fauna, and Endangered Species of Artist Ralph Burke Tyree. To reserve seats, visit https://www.warwicks.com/cook-2023-reserved-seat.

C.J. Cook is an author, historian, and biographer of artists of the South Pacific, primarily Hawaii and Tahiti. His first biography about Ralph Burke Tyree, Tyree: Artist of the South Pacific, won two Gold Awards for Best Cover and Best Biography from the Independent Book Publishers Association. His second book about Edgar Leeteg, the Rascal in Paradise, entitled Leeteg: Babes, Bars, Beaches, and Black Velvet Art, was equally successful, winning a Gold Medal for Best Biography from the IBPA.

A tribute to the artistic brilliance of Ralph Burke Tyree and the animals and plants of our planet, Beauty in the Beast begins with a quote by Albert Einstein that evokes one of the greatest challenges of our time: “Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”

Ralph Burke Tyree was a prolific artist who helped popularize Polynesian art in the 20th century. Beauty in the Beast is the story of Tyree’s creative genius in painting flora and fauna, including colorful and exotic animals from around the world, many of which are endangered species.

Raised in California’s Central Valley, Tyree received his art education in San Francisco. He joined the Marines after the start of World War II and deployed to Samoa in the South Pacific, where Private Tyree was designated the resident artist of the Marine base. He returned to California after the war, married his high school sweetheart, Margo, started a family, and began to work as a professional artist in California and the Pacific Rim. He depicted the idyllic beauties in beach or jungle settings with tropical flora, notably plumeria and hibiscus, adorning the hair of his subjects. Initially, he primarily painted with oils on board, but in 1960 Tyree switched mediums and began painting with oils on fine black velvet to add depth and texture.

When the first Earth Day sparked the environmental movement of the 1970s, and DDT threatened the bald eagle and other birds of prey with extinction, endangered animals entered his repertoire. For the next decade, his primary interest was oil painting these majestic creatures on both board and velvet, bringing awareness to their declining numbers. Tyree died in 1979 at 57.

Published to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, Beauty in the Beast explores the works of the last ten years of Tyree’s life when animals became his focus. Some endangered species covered are the pangolin, cotton-top tamarin, ornate Hawk-eagle, dwarf lemur, red panda, slow loris, and several big cats, including tigers, lions, and leopards.

Originally published at https://www.warwicks.com on October 12, 2023.

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Birthplace of Venus: Tahiti

“The Birth of Venus,” William-Adolphe Bouguereau, oil on canvas, 1879, Musee d’Orsay. Painted from Bougainville’s description of the fine women of Tahiti.

In April 1768, months after Wallis’s departure, two French ships, La Boudeuse and L’Etoile, arrived in Tahitian waters. Unaware of Wallis’s earlier visit, the expedition’s captain, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, believed he was the first European to set eyes on this magnificent island. Bougainville stayed in Tahiti for months, studying the island’s flora, fauna, and native inhabitants. Inspired by the sensual and free-loving Tahitians, the captain named the island “La Nouvelle Cythere,” after the mythical birthplace of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Venus was the Roman equivalent.

Upon returning to France, Bougainville wrote his famous Voyage Autour du Monde (Journey around the World), reinforcing the image of Tahiti as an island of limitless sensual pleasures. Bougainville’s writings and the art accompanying them sparked great interest in the island and its people.

“Nowhere can you find such beautiful models,” he wrote. “[My men] were invited into the houses and fed; but it was not a light snack to which the civility of the host is limited here. They offered them their daughters. The ground was covered with leaves and flowers and musicians sang. Venus is here, the goddess of hospitality.”

The next year, just eight months after Bougainville’s visit, Lt. James Cook left England aboard the HMS Endeavor bound for Tahiti. His mission: to document the transit of the planet Venus from the South Pacific. (It was something of a funny cosmic coincidence that Cook and his men headed to the fabled birthplace of Venus to study her namesake in the sky.)

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Paradise Found: The British in Tahiti

Captain Samuel Wallis’s crew are welcomed to Tahiti in 1767 — with sex on the beach.

Much to Wallis’s frustration, he was too ill to go ashore, giving the honor to his lieutenant, Tobias Furneaux. Furneaux was thus the first European to set foot on Tahitian soil. Accompanied by a dozen crewmates, he waded onto the beach, proudly planting the British flag.

No sooner had he done so than a young vahine, who had been watching the alien ceremony with her friends, dropped her clothing, suggesting they make love. Coming off months at sea, the British sailors were eager to oblige. Embracing the opportunity, one cabin boy proceeded to have sex in full view of his companions. To the staid Brits, this was a fantasy come to life. To the Tahitians, who had a much different set of sexual mores, it was just another day in paradise. Wallis and the crew stayed in Tahiti for nine days before setting sail for the long trip back to England. Engravings made of the adventurous landfall were the first to depict the islands’ topless beauties, establishing a tradition of exotic — and erotic — art that would continue until Leeteg’s arrival centuries later.

Figure 2 Colored engravings from Captain Samuel Wallis’s expedition to Tahiti (1766–1768) were the first to show the topless beauties of these remote islands.[image error]

TYREE: Artist of the South Pacific

“Kulio” by Ralph Burke Tyree. 1968, oil on velvet, 20" x 16" — from the author’s collection and featured in TYREE: ARTIST OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC. More info: www.southpacificdreams.com/books/tyree.

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Polynesia and Tahiti

Bora Bora, French Polynesia.

The Pacific Ocean, more significant than all the Earth’s land masses, comprises more than 7,500 islands. The central regions are Melanesia to the west (New Guinea, New Caledonia, & Fiji) and Micronesia (Palau, Guam, and Marianas) in the middle. The third region is Polynesia, meaning “many islands,” and is the easternmost. These islands include Hawaii to the north, Tahiti, Samoa, and New Zealand to the south, with the Easter Islands the easternmost. The people of Polynesia are believed to have immigrated from China and Taiwan. They were thought to have island-hopped over centuries to Indonesia, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, Society Islands, and finally around 500 A.D. to Hawaii.

Human migration pattern from Melanesia, Micronesia, to Polynesia.

Stretching from New Zealand in the southwest and Easter Island in the southeast to Hawaii in the north, the Polynesian (“many islands”) Triangle spreads across a large swath of the central and southern Pacific Ocean and includes over 1,000 islands. Legendary sailors adept at navigating by the stars, Polynesians left their ancestral home of Taiwan sometime between 3,000 and 1,000 BCE. They began to explore and inhabit some of the most remote slivers of land on Earth.

French Polynesia is renowned for its beauty and friendly people, but relatively little is known about its history. A marae is a Polynesian temple enclosure used for worship or sacrifice, the most important being Taputapuatea marae on the island of Raiatea. It dates to 1000 AD and is located at the heart of Polynesia. It is used for worship and as a community gathering for ceremonies and rituals. It was believed to be an area where the gods lived, and humans and the gods could interact. The marae was dedicated to the war god, Oro. The worship of this god was linked to human sacrifice, their skulls crushed with clubs.

Taputapuatea marae on the island of Raiatea, French Polynesia.

Western explorers only recognized the cultures and beauty of these peoples living in their paradise in the late 18th century when explorers started bringing back reports of gorgeous beaches, tranquil blue lagoons, and loosely clad women. No Pacific locale is better at defining the beauty of Polynesia and its people than the islands of Tahiti.

Tahiti is a group of Islands that make up French Polynesia, also called the Society Islands. The first Polynesians arrived about 300 A.D. and settled in the Society Islands. It would be over 1400 years before European explorers arrived in the South Pacific, accompanied by their botanists and artists to detail their discoveries for their sponsoring countries. Commencing in 1767, these initial explorations to the Pacific and Tahiti generated many wonderful new and different interpretations of the world. These artists begot authors, who delivered more artists, and later photographers, to reveal the islands’ animals, plants, and peoples of these South Seas. Understanding the magnetism that was Tahiti is different than any other island chain in the Pacific; an aura, an allure, attracted the artist’s souls from the Western world to this paradise.

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Leeteg: Babes, Bars, Beaches, and Black Velvet Art

Iconoclast. Contrarian. Pugilist. Artist.

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Throughout his life, shrewd promoter and creative genius Edgar Leeteg possessed many titles, astounding fans, and antagonizing critics.

Considered the “American Gauguin,” the rakish ladies man originated the modern technique of oil painting on black velvet. Once memorialized by James Michener as an original rascal in paradise, he redefined artistic success by pioneering a form of painting in the South Pacific that would forever change the world.

Leeteg: Babes, Bars, Beaches and Black Velvet Art, which I wrote with Michael Ashley, is a biography of the artist Leeteg, who left California in 1933 with a few paintbrushes and oils bound for the South Pacific. He started the black velvet painting craze linked to South Pacific-themed restaurants. His home in Tahiti allowed him to paint nudes, drink, and party with sensual vahines from the beaches to the bars of Tahiti (Captain Louis Bougainville’s birthplace of Venus, goddess of love).

Leeteg described himself as a “fornicating, gin-soaked, dope head,” and all the artists and writers of the South Pacific knew of him. He took on the elite of the art establishment of the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 1938 and shamed them in the press. He painted murals in fine establishments in Honolulu and Tahiti and sheltered himself and his family on the neighboring island of Moorea. However, his self-promotional newspaper Letters to the Editor and drinking bouts in the bars of Papeete, especially Quinn’s Tahitian Hut, made him a most famous scoundrel in the South Seas. In his lifetime, he was a wealthy artist and legend, a goal few can achieve. Tourists visiting Tahiti would seek him out for his generosity of wine, women, and song on his Shangri-la-like estate called Villa Velour on his quiet isle. He was the father of black velvet art and the genesis of a genre that continues today with the Tiki and Polynesian pop art movement nearly 70 years later.

Instead of viewing Leeteg as a relic of some unenlightened period, we should ask ourselves, what can this genius teach us about what it means to create and fearlessly love? Death will come for us all one day. As he wrote just before he died in Tahiti, “Might be a good idea to salt away a few Leeteg velvets . . .as an Inheritance . . . just in case I must leave suddenly this beautiful nooky-laden Paradise for a sexless one.”

When we look back at Leeteg, we encounter our own reflection, forcing us to reckon with our existence. When this occurs, a question arises: Did we live as much as possible?

When it comes to Leeteg, we know the answer.

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Trader Vic’s and the Original Mai Tai

In 1944, Vic Bergeron, owner of Trader Vic’s, displayed Edgar Leeteg’s black velvet oil paintings to embellish his restaurant walls in Oakland, California, following in the footsteps of the Los Angeles restaurants Don the Beachcomber and Seven Seas.

Noteworthy, a few months earlier, on August 30, 1944, Vic had drinks at his establishment with two friends, Eastham and Caroline Guild, Tahitian expatriates. With the threat of WWII, the Guilds left Tahiti in 1940 and moved to the San Francisco area.

Bergeron fixed them a new concoction of expensive aged rums and lime juice over ice. Caroline Guild exclaimed as they sipped his delightful drink, “Mai Tai Roa Ae,” the Tahitian phrase for “Out of this world. The best!”

This was the birth of the famous drink, the Mai Tai.

Caroline Guild

Caroline Guild, who fished big billfish with Zane Grey, named the Mai Tai. After nearly twenty years in Tahiti, she wrote Rainbow in Tahiti in 1948.

The recipe for Trader Vic’s 1944 Mai Tai:

1 oz Dark Jamaican Rum

1 oz Aged Martinique Rum

½ oz Orange Curacao

¼ oz Orgeat Syrup

¼ oz Rock Candy Syrup

1 oz Fresh Lime Juice

Shake and pour the ice in the glass. Add garnish with ½ Lime Shell and Mint.

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