I have never seen this but this type of "art work" is not art work to me.

Hello Barbara - when I first saw your post title, the word kitsch popped into my head.  A piece of Americana for sure.  

I remember some that were painted on black velvet paper.  I thought they were nice back then!

Inquiring minds need to know! What first came to mind when I saw black velvet paintings was the dogs playing poker which has been used a lot in movies etc.

I extrtacted this from Wikipedia.

Early history

Black velvet paintings originated in Kashmir, the homeland of the fabric. These original paintings were generally religious and portrayed the icons of the Caucasus region which were painted by Russian Orthodox priests. Marco Polo and others introduced black velvet paintings to Western Europe, and some of these early works still hang in the Vatican Museums.

Modern history

The paintings are widely sold in rural America, and frequently have kitsch themes. They often depict images of Elvis Presley (see Velvet Elvis), Dale Earnhardt, John Wayne, Jesus, Native Americans, dogs playing poker, wolves, and cowboys, and the colors are often bright and vivid to contrast the dark velvet. They can also include more exotic or avant-garde themes.

Ciudad Juárez, Mexico was a center of velvet painting in the 1970s A displaced Georgia farmboy, Doyle Harden, was the pioneer who created an enormous factory, where velvets were turned out by the thousands by artists sitting in studios. One artist would paint one piece of the picture, then slide the velvet along to the next artist, who would add something else. Velvet paintings mass-produced by hand in this manner fueled the boom in velvet paintings in the 1970s in the United States. Edgar Leeteg has been called "the father of American black velvet kitsch".

In Portland, Oregon, a museum devoted solely to velvet paintings, the Velveteria, operated from late 2005 to January 2010. It reopened in December 2013 in the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles, Calif.