Margaret D. H. Keane is an American artist. Creator of the "big-eyed waifs," Keane is famous for drawing paintings with big eyes. She mainly paints women, children and animals in oil or mixed media. While the work achieved commercial success through inexpensive reproductions on prints, plates and cups, it has been critically dismissed as kitsch. One reviewer pointed to its ubiquity in discount stores: "They hung in Woolworth's, next to the velvet Elvis, or maybe it was Walgreen's, by the clowns."The work was originally attributed to Keane's husband, Walter Keane. After their divorce in the 1960s, Margaret soon claimed credit, which was established after an in-court "paint-off" in Hawaii.A resurgence of interest in Margaret Keane's work followed the release of Tim Burton's 2014 biopic Big Eyes. She maintains a gallery in San Francisco which boasts "the largest collection of Margaret Keane's art in the entire world." In light of the great gulf between her work's popularity and its critical lampooning, she has been called the "Wayne Newton of the art world."
“The older I get, the brighter colours I live. But in the past, they were dark, dingy, sad colours.”
KQED Arts, " Margaret Keane, Painter Behind Tim Burton's 'Big Eyes' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMKnuhNe3Pc," YouTube.com.
2014
“He can't paint eyes. He couldn't learn to paint at all.”
Cited in " The lady behind those Keane-eyed kids https://books.google.com/books?id=2FMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA56," LIFE 69, no. 21 (20 November 1970), p. 56.
1970
“Walter was extremely charming. He could charm anybody, especially women.”
2014, Cited by Jesse Hamlin
“It was the eyes that did it. [timid giggle] I liked the way he painted eyes and he liked mine.”
Stated at a time when Margaret Keane was still going along with the fraud that her husband was the painter of the Big Eyed waifs.
Cited by Jane Howard, " The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes: The Phenomenal Success of Walter Keane https://books.google.com/books?id=WFMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA39," LIFE 59, no. 9 (27 August 1965), p. 45.
1965, Cited by Jane Howard
“I'd have to lock the door of the paint room. He wouldn't allow anyone in. I was like a prisoner.”
1999, Cited by Amy M. Spindler
1999, Cited by Amy M. Spindler
Context: Gradually it dawned on me that I was painting my own inner emotions. Those children were asking: "Why are we here? What is life all about? Why is there sadness and injustice?" All those deep questions. Those children were sad because they didn't have the answers. They were searching.
Interviewed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMK6aBSX2QY on The Mike Douglas Show (1972).
1972
This statement was made before the public learned that Margaret, and not Walter, was the painter of the Big Eyed waifs.
Interviewed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WgStC6fvtM by Gary E. Park (circa 1964).
Walter Keane
