THROUGH THE EYES OF MARGARET KEANE

One of my blogger friends, Lady Caer Morganna, recently wrote a post on her blog For the Love of Cats that intrigued me. It was about one of her favorite artists, Puerto Rican-born Cyra R. Cancel, who creates fantasy cat art. Cancel's lovely paintings of wide-eyed cats suddenly reminded me of the wide-eyed Keane paintings.

Cyra R. Cancel    (link)  

The unique and intriguing Keane paintings of children and animals were immensely popular in the 1960s. When I was about twelve or thirteen I had four Keane cat posters hanging in my bedroom.

At that time, it was universally assumed that the paintings were done by an artist named Walter Keane.
It wasn't until many years later that I did some research and learned the truth.

Walter Keane never painted the pictures. They were all created by his wife Margaret. The story is long and intricate, but I'll try to condense.

Peggy Hawkins (Margaret's birth-name) was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1927. A botched mastoid operation damaged one of her eardrums and left her partially deaf. She became fascinated with painting at an early age. She attended classes at the Watkins Institute in Nashville and later studied art at the Traphaugen School of Design in New York City. By the mid-1950s she began a career as a portrait painter.

Her first marriage to Frank Ulbrich produced a daughter but ended in divorce. In 1955 Margaret became smitten by a suave, charming real estate agent named Walter Keane. They were quickly married in Honolulu.

It wasn't long before Walter began taking an uncanny interest in Margaret's paintings. He eventually abandoned real estate and began promoting, exhibiting, and selling his wife's paintings throughout the United States.

There was one major issue that Margaret initially knew nothing about: 
Her husband was promoting her paintings as his own. According to him, the artist was Walter Keane.

At that time in her life, Margaret was timid and withdrawn. When she finally discovered what her husband was doing, she remained silent due to his bullying and constant threats.

She finally divorced Walter in 1964 and eventually summoned the courage to go on a radio show and announce that she was the real creator of the paintings.

A reporter from the San Francisco Examiner arranged a public "paint-out" between Margaret and Walter in Union Square.
Walter never showed up.

In 1982 Margaret Keane sued Walter and USA Today in federal court for an article claiming that Walter was the real artist.

The judge ordered Margaret and Walter to create a painting in the courtroom to determine who was the real artist. 

Walter declined, claiming he had a sore shoulder. Margaret produced an impressive painting in less than an hour. She won the case and was awarded four million dollars.

Margaret never got the money, but stated that all she really wanted was to establish the fact that she was the real artist ( a federal appeals court upheld the defamation verdict but overturned the $4 million damage award).

Margaret Keane is still alive and painting today at age 94. She lives in Napa County, California with her daughter and son-in-law.

Keane's paintings reached a peak of popularity in the 1960s. At that time her artistic output consisted mostly of children and animals with the trademark uncanny wide eyes. 
Unique, mesmerizing, mysterious - - sometimes almost creepy. 
Margaret eventually expanded her artistic repertoire and minimized the ubiquitous hypnotic eyes in her portraits.
Her work is still popular, especially with collectors.

Margaret Keane

 

This is one of the cat posters I used to have. Don't know whatever happened to it.

 Numerous celebrities commissioned Keane to paint their portraits. This is one she did of Joan Crawford.

Margaret Keane in later years

ART LESSON

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Boys and Girls,
transgenders, transsexuals, transvestites, and
Transcontinental Railway aficionados -

Okay, Jon - you've just insulted 99 per cent of your readers.

Today we are going to ponder the glorious realms of artistic creativity. 

I have first, for your consideration, a portrait of a black - -oops, sorry! - of an African American youth erotically straddling a wooden cross.

Of course, there's nothing legally wrong with that procedure - -
except that I wouldn't advise doing it in  public,
and there's always the nasty possibility of getting splinters.

 Next, I proudly present Mary, Comforting the Afflicted.
A noble and nearly-heartwarming presentation......if you can get past the possibility that Mary might be harboring a secret stash of male hormones.

And now, for the piece de resistance (uttered with a snooty French accent)

Behold:
Judith Beheading Holofernes!!

But wait a minute! Just to be historically correct,
wasn't Judith of Bethulia a Jewess?
And wasn't Holofernes an Assyrian General of Nebuchadnezzar? (of the male persuasion)

No need to fret, people. This isn't supposed to be an historically accurate portrayal. It's an artistic portrayal.

The true beauty of this interpretation is that the beheader is a black - oops - I mean African American woman,
and the beheaded victim is a white woman.

It's merely a humble protest against  African American - suppression and the distant confines of slavery.

When the artist who painted this was asked (or, perhaps axed) to define his interpretation, he merely replied:

"It's a play on the kill whitey thing."

That's profound.

Many discerning art critics agree. Art connoisseur Jonathan Levine described this as "A fun painting!"

Right.
Not too much fun for "whitey", though.

If you would like an encore - just to keep the white heads rolling - may I present another glorious Kill Whitey-themed masterpiece.

I know you're all (in breathless unison) asking the burning question:
Who is the artist that created these artistic wonders?

Meet African American artist Kehinde Wiley.

A racially advanced arteeest with a black supremacist agenda.

A proud gay American artist with a noble cause.

One small, little-known fact:
Kehinde Wiley is not alone when creating his masterpieces. Besides having a Harlem studio, he has a sizeable studio near Beijing, China - where he pays local artists to do the bulk of his work.

When writer Christopher Beam went to China to interview Wiley, the artist quickly made his "assistants" evacuate the premises and demanded that Beam delete the photos he had taken with his cell phone.
(New York Magazine, April 22, 2012)

Nothing wrong with artists having assistants. Heck, Andy Warhol had them.
But, of course, Warhol didn't use underpaid Chinese slave labor.

Smile. It was an innocent attempt to interject humor.

I've saved the very best for last, my sweet and savory artistic devotees.

Take a deep breath and feast your eyes on the Crowning Glory of artistic achievements:

Kehinde Wiley's official presidential portrait of Barack Hussein Obama!!!!

A proud contribution to the Smithsonian Gallery of American Presidents - -  

a stunning portrait.....and an incredibly accurate representation of Obama's eight years in office.
Such depth and dignity, not to mention exquisite use of raw simplicity and dark (no pun intended) symbolism.

The possibilities of interpretation are endless.

Are the hands enormously large? Does the left hand have six fingers - - or is it merely another right hand?

Is it only a coincidence that Allah symbolically has two right hands?
(from the Hadith - a collection of Muhammad's words and deeds - Sahih Muslim, 1827).

Very large hands, of course, indicate sizable male virility - - which is debatable for someone who throws a baseball like Peewee Herman.

We won't mention the random background flowers, or the supposed (supposed) sperm cell that critics claim is adhered to the left side of the face....
Note:
I'm not joking about sperm cells in Wiley's paintings. It's one of his artistic trademarks. Look it up.

....but the abundant weeds, or vines, or bushes that dominate the portrait are definitely open for speculation.

Could this possibly be the fault of George Bush??

Hardly. The incessant greenery is most probably representative of an African heritage. 

Drawn your own conclusions, ladies, gentlemen, and uncertains.

I would never dare to influence you by saying that it looks like he's taking a shit in the jungle.