June 24, 2012

The King of Kitsch: Vladimir Tretchikoff.

Vladimir Tretchikoff was born in 1913 in Siberia and was a self-taught painter who was very popular in the 1950's and 1960's. After living in Siberia for a few years, Tretchikoff's family moved around to Shanghai, Malyasia and finally South Africa which was where the inspiration came for his paintings. His work consisted mostly of portraits, still life, animals, or exotic flowers, however he was most known for the kitschy portraits he painted of women from the South Pacific. Many art critics did not consider his painting style to be actual art and dubbed him as the "King of Kitsch", but that did not affect his popularity in the least. In fact, the demand for Tretchikoff's paintings sky-rocketed so high in the 60's and 70's that to this day he is thought to be the artist with the most reproduced paintings second to Picasso. 

Here are a few of our favorite Tretchikoff prints: 
(and I am even lucky enough to have two, as seen in the photo above!)
"The Chinese Girl"
(This is possibly the most well known of all of Tretchikoff's work.)

"Fruits of Bali"

"Lady From Orient"

"Miss Wong"

"Balinese Girl"

All images found on www.vladimirtretchikoff.com
except for the first one, which is a photo I snapped of my bedroom wall.

P.S. While we're on the topic of sixties art, stay tuned tomorrow because we will be sharing our wall art D.I.Y. project with you! Hope you all are having a fantastic weekend!

9 comments:

  1. Interesting! The Balinese Girl is my favorite, love the colors!

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  2. I love the color of your room! This art is beautiful great choices.

    sweetsweetnightingale.blogspot.com

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  3. Holy moly! what's the name of that turquoise paint?????

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  4. Ohhh I love it!! It goes very well with the color of your room!

    Cathy Trails

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  5. i love it. Amazing painting. Thanks for sharing.
    3lin

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  6. These are fantastic! I just love this style!

    ♥Sarah♥
    theantiquepearl.blogspot.com

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  7. I love tretchikoff,I have the lost orchid print.I love how it is quirky,A match on the steps and a cigarette stub next to this beautiful flower.It is meant to be going on my shop but Im having a hard time parting with it x

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  8. I love his stuff but my Husband is not a fan so we're not allowed any in the house:( Have come across quite a few original prints in Cornwall, UK and it killed me to pass them up. Wayne Hemmingway (UK designer who runs a fantastic vintage festival here)is a big collector - you should google him, his house is pretty awesome:)

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  9. Nice post!

    Boris Gorelik
    author of Incredible Tretchikoff (Art / Books, London, 2013)

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