Black Velvet Masterpieces

8-1/2 x 9 in; 192 pp ; full-color and b/w photographs throughout
Hardcover
Published in April, 2008
ISBN 0811862070
ISBN13 9780811862073

$24.95  

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Black Velvet Masterpieces -- Though beloved by millions around the world, black velvet paintings have too long been relegated to the shadowy backrooms of art history. Black Velvet Masterpieces celebrates the best and worst of this kitschy yet sought-after artform, showcasing the most mind-blowing paintings from the Velveteria museum, home to a rotating collection of more than 1,200 crying Elvises, troubling clowns, naked ladies, dogs playing poker, celebrity and presidential portraits, black light psych-outs, and the just plain weird. Complementing 300 reproductions of these tactile masterpieces are a unique history of the medium tracing its roots from ancient China and Japan through Victorian England, the South Seas, Southeast Asia, and the Americas, and a step-by-step exploration of the tricky art of painting on this luxurious fabric.

Caren Anderson and Carl Baldwin fell in love while on the hunt for black velvet paintings. Together they opened the Velveteria museum in Portland, Oregon, in 2005 and are the world's leading authorities on this underappreciated art.

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Weird, Wacky, and... Weird

2008-04-17 | 11:30 AM | Guinevere Harrison

I admit, I was seduced by the sensory overload of a fuzzy velvet cover paired with with a glossy/shiny Tahitian beauty and blue fanged panther... Rrrrrrr. I expected Elvis, creepy large-eyed children, and of course, unicorns. But nothing prepared me for Jesus blessing an 18-wheeler or Black Velvet Oprah. You've got to see it to believe it.