Burnette G Pletan, World's Fastest Artist

Burnette G Pletan, in 1988

Burnette Pletan (playt-un) b.1910 - d.????), the self-styled "Fastest Painter in the World".

Pletan started painting in 1932 after an artist visited his parent's farm, and Pletan decided he could be a painter himself. Self-taught, Pletan said (or possibly joked) that when he started painting he did not know that artists had special brushes, so he used regular house-painting brushes for his art. Whether a joke or not, that style of brush was the implement Pletan used the most, as demonstrated in two videos in the 1980s:

• Pletan on "65 and over"
• Pletan performing a very entertaining 'Bob-Ross' style how-to-paint