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.
Edgar Leeteg (1904–1953), often considered the father of American velvet painting, did his best works between 1933 and 1953.
Ciudad Juárez,
Mexico was a center of velvet painting in the 1970s. 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. 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". In
Portland, Oregon, a museum devoted solely to velvet paintings, the
Velveteria, operated from late 2005 to January 2010. It reopened in December 2013 in the Chinatown neighborhood of
Los Angeles. == See also ==