The art for this shirt was created by John “Keoni” Meigs, a Honolulu artist who began creating textile designs in Honolulu in the late 1930’s . He was an exceptional and innovative fabric artist and created close to 300 designs for the local and mainland garment and textile companies.
In 1997, the Graphic Arts Gallery of the Honolulu Academy of Arts showcased his textile art: “Keoni of Hawaii: Aloha Shirt Designs 1938 – 1951.
This design was inspired by Paul Gauguin, a French Post-Imperialist artist who sailed to French Polynesia in 1891 to escape European civilization and “Everything that is artificial and conventional”. During his stay he wrote a book titled Noa Noa describing his experiences in Tahiti.
The illustrations from that book inspired “Keoni” to create this Tahitian block print design. This shirt was made for California retail store Desmond’s. They requested shirt makers to “private Label” their shirts with their exclusive Desmond’s label.
