Tyree

Double Gold Medal Winner: IBPA Book Award for Best Biography and Best Cover, 2018

The World War II US Marine who became an iconic artist of the Tiki aesthetic

Raised in Central California, Ralph Burke Tyree was the most prolific portrait artist of the South Pacific peoples of the twentieth century. After studying art at the California College of the Arts in Oakland, Tyree joined the Marines seven weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He soon shipped off to Samoa.

There, Private Tyree was befriended by his Commanding General and became the Marine base’s artist, painting the officers and their loved ones. Thus began a thirty-year career as a professional artist.

After the war, Tyree returned to the South Pacific to live in places such as Guam, Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island of Hawaii and traveling to Palau, Fiji, Tahiti, Samoa, and the Solomon Islands, painting sensual portraits and idyllic beach and jungle scenes on fine French silk and black velvet. During the Tiki revolution of the 1960s, Tyree’s paintings were favored by Tiki bars and restaurants, making him one of the most famous South Pacific and Tiki artists of the twentieth century.

Ralph Burke Tyree was a dreamer, whose idyllic paintings invite you into a balmy paradise. In full color, Tyree: Artist of the South Pacific chronicles his distinguished career, from US Marine to Tiki art icon and endangered species activist.

C.J. Cook is an award-winning author and historian with a long interest in the history of the South Pacific. His first book, Tyree: Artist of the South Pacific (2017), was an incredible success, winning two Gold Awards for Best Cover and Best Biography from the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) in April 2018. His second book, Leeteg: Babes, Bars, Beaches, and Black Velvet Art, won a Gold Medal for Best Biography from the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) in April 2022. In 2023, Cook released a sequel to his first biography, Beauty in the Beast: Flora, Fauna, and Endangered Species of Artist Ralph Burke Tyree. This work expanded on Ralph Burke Tyree's themes and legacy. Continuing his exploration of South Pacific artists' lives and works, in January 2025, Cook will release his fourth book, Edithe Beutler: Beautifying Hawaii with Color (2025). Beutler was the foremost colorist in Hawaii, painting black and white prints before color photography.

Cook has been a lifelong manuscript collector interested in art and the South Pacific. He is a board member of The Manuscript Society, dedicated to preserving manuscripts and historical documents. 

He also collects art from the South Pacific, including Ralph Burke Tyree, Edgar Leeteg, Edithe Beutler, Madge Tennent, Cece Rodriguez, Robert Lee Eskridge, and William Bloom. Some of these paintings appear in his books.

He has and continues to explore the South Pacific, including Guam, Pohnpei, Taiwan, Truk, Palau, Bali, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, its Great Barrier Reef, Tahiti and its surrounding islands, and the Hawaiian Islands. He visits the last two island paradises multiple times a year.