In the late 1940's and 50's Artvouge created out-of-the-ordinary prints and shirts with imaginative front and back panel layouts. The San Francisco based company featured stunning prints with South Pacific themes as well as shirts with Asian motifs.
It is believed they worked with the Los Angeles based textile company, Harry Goldinger Textile Corp. who created a collection of engineered Polynesian themed designs. Their collection was called the "Master Painters" and they sold many of their designs to Artvogue.
This series featured bold South Pacific landscapes on the entire back of a shirt, solid-color frontsand a pattern printed on the pockets and collars. These patterns were created by their artist Wolfgang Wolf
Wolf and his wife fled Nazi oppression in 1934 with a daring escape to Tahiti, leaving everything behind. He had hoped to become a Vanilla farmer but the French government would not allow it. Without other options, he decided to become an artist.
Although Wolf did not have any formal art training, his talent was quickly recognized and he was given a show in Papeete at the Bougainville. This gave him the confidence to pursue his art career in the Pacific, much like Paul Gauguin had done before him. He soon had art exhibits in Australia, Argentina and the United States.
In the late 1940's he moved to California where he eventually turned to commercial textile designs.
Their label boasts a French artist smoking a pipe, needle and thread in one hand and an artists palette tray in another, with the artist wearing a spool of thread.
