If you’re of a Certain Age, you may remember the plague of Keane “Big Eyed waifs” paintings.
Since it’s my blog, I have no hesitancy in calling it schmaltz of the worst ilk. Sort of the Thomas Kinkade / Norman Rockwell / Maxfield Parrish of its time.
[However, as time passed, note how Parrish and now Rockwell are considered Great Artists…hmm…and frankly, seems like an awful lot of the work you see in Juxtapoz and High Fructose have that look as well…maybe I need to write another essay about this…]
Anyway, there was an interesting wrinkle in the story. It turns out that Walter Keane, who swanned around all full of himself as the money was rolling in, was really a faker. His wife had painted all those paintings and never got credit for them. After she finally got up the gumption to challenge and sue her ex-husband, they met in court where she challenged him to paint a painting in front of the judge while she did.
Well, “his shoulder hurt” so he was not able to perform, but it was clear to the judge he was a fraud.
You can read a good summary of this story on wikipedia.
So even though I may not appreciate her work, I have to salute her for exposing her husband for the fraud he was.
Her gallery is at http://www.keane-eyes.com/
linda fetch 