Edgar Leeteg

[1] 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 Great Depression made conditions difficult.

[1] 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).

[1] 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.

[1] Almost a year later, he and his family were in Tahiti and saw some Leeteg paintings in a tourist shop including his now famous Hina Rapa.

It was the Deckers' financial support that ensured Leeteg's economic survival, but it was Honolulu art dealer Bernard ("Barney") Davis who would make him famous.

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.

[5] Leeteg's popularity soared following a fortunate meeting with Honolulu art gallery owner Barney Davis, who became his agent.

He hung out at Tahiti's famous bar Quinn's Tahitian Hut and was a friend of Mutiny on the Bounty author James Norman Hall, who lived in Papeete.

Edgar Leeteg died in 1953 in a motorcycle crash in Papeete at the age of 49 following a party at Les Tropiques resort.

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.

[1] Later, his body moved to a small cemetery east of Papeete, where Jackie and his mother were buried.11 As was the case with other popular artists such as Tretchikoff and Margaret Keane, Leeteg was never accepted by the art establishment.

Canadian songwriters Christopher Ward and David Tyson wrote the song, initially recorded by Alannah Myles in 1990.

Cook, CJ and Ashley, Michael: Leeteg, Babes, Bars, Beaches, and Black Velvet Art.