The Real Artist Behind Those Big-Eyed Waifs Has Died
Margaret Keane, the rightful artist of the critically panned but publicly adored paintings of saucer-eyed, anemic waifs, died Sunday at her home in Napa, California. She was 94. Keane’s big-eye paintings were a source of such fierce controversy that they even inspired the 2014 Tim Burton film Big Eyes, a biopic that once and for all told the true story of the artist behind the ridiculously popular kitschy paintings.
In 1955, Margaret Keane’s husband, Walter Stanley Keane, began selling her paintings as his own work. Not even Margaret was aware of the deception at first. She only discovered the con one night at the Hungry i, a comedy club in San Francisco where, banished to the corner, she observed Walter representing her work to buyers. Only when a customer came up to her and asked if she also painted did she realize that her husband was taking credit for work she had created.
Walter’s reasons made some sense to her: He explained that buyers are receptive to artists representing their personal work and that paintings by male artists tend to sell better. She was also afraid of her husband, who claimed he was mob connected. So, she remained complicit, anonymously churning out the portraits of children with enormous eyes while Walter lived a luxurious playboy life with orgies in their kidney-shaped pool, all of it financed by the sale of Margaret’s painting.