a Window to the soul part2
Jabriol
...
http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/keane00723cci.shtml
The eyes of Margaret Keane
ART: The artist's doe-eyed paintings, always popular, now are suddenly
hip. But behind the innocent eyes lies a tale of a painful struggle for
identity.
July 23, 2000
By SARA WOLF
Special to the Register
Some things are eternal. Like kitsch. There will always be crocheted
toilet paper covers, black velvet paintings of Elvis and, yes, big-eyed
waifs.
Not the waifish look of model Kate Moss. The waifs of Margaret Keane. If
the name doesn't ring a bell, then an image might. Remember those small
children with inordinately large dark pools for eyes staring forlornly
out from a dime-store picture frame with an unwavering, questioning
gaze, a single tear coursing down a cherubic cheek? Like troll dolls and
The
Monkees, they were emblematic of a 1960s childhood.
Well, those big wide bug eyes are back. Not only have such popular
cartoon heroines as the Power Puff Girls been seen sporting oversized
orbs, but they're popping up in all sorts of unlikely places - in a
Marilyn Manson music video, a new L.A. Eyeworks ad campaign, and at the
Laguna Art Museum, where the exhibition "Margaret Keane and Keaneabilia"
opens July 30.
The exhibition traces the arc of Keane's 40-year career as a painter and
printmaker, from obscurity to pop phenomenon and back again. Keane's
popularity is once again at a high-water mark, with a resurgence of
interest by collectors and artists alike. As yet another chapter in
museum curator Tyler Stallings' continuing exploration of the places
where popular culture and contemporary art practices meet (Stallings has
curated previous exhibitions about skateboarding and UFOs), the
exhibition places Keane's work in the context of aesthetic inspiration
and popular culture. Alongside 35 of Keane's paintings and prints, rare
vintage memorabilia and work by classic 1960s imitators, Stallings has
included work by four young artists - Mark Ryden, Dave Burke, Lisa
Petrucci and Dani Tull - each of whom references Keane's work in
different ways.
For the new generation of figurative painters that has arisen since the
mid-'90s, Stallings explains, Keane's trademark waifs have an
authenticity that is very much of another, less ironic time. "People who
are drawn to the work, and who are doing riffs on her, are interested in
its combination of pain and kitsch - the actual pain and emotion that's
in the work, combined with the kitsch level that the work attained."
Indeed, the haunting quality of what came to be known as Keane Eyes
struck a nerve when they first started to gain worldwide attention in
the early 1960s. Art critics and the intelligentsia may have panned them
as
little more than maudlin hack work, but Keane's images of saucer eyed
innocents lost in bleak dark landscapes captured the public's
imagination, spawning a craze in which they were mass produced as
prints, plates, greeting cards and ceramic figurines.
Original oil paintings sold faster than the artist could churn them out.
Collectors included Hollywood celebrities Joan Crawford, Jerry Lewis,
Red Skelton and Kim Novak, as well as international diplomats and
industrialists such as Nelson Rockefeller. The work was loved by high
and low, rich and poor. According to a 1963 catalog of lithographs,
"King
Baudoin of the Belgians and a Chicago druggist both treasure the Lost
Waifs."
They hung in the United Nations in New York and in the Bolshoi Theater
in Moscow. There were spinoffs and imitators. The eyes transmogrified
into
the animal kingdom with "Pity Kitties" and into the arms of children,
with dolls such as "Susie Sad Eyes" and Hasbro's "Little Miss No Name."
There was Margaret and her husband, Walter, sketching Natalie Wood
poolside in Life magazine. It is the picture of sweet success.
IN A SPOUSE's SHADOW
Today, at 72, Margaret Keane lives in Sebastopol with her daughter,
Jane. A devout Jehovah's Witness, she spends her days gardening and
painting.
Business is brisk at the Keane Eyes Gallery in San Francisco, which
opened in fall 1991. Once again, her work is in demand. Collectors
include film director Tim Burton and rock musician Matthew Sweet. New
oil paintings sell on the average for between $15,000-$25,000; earlier
work
can sell at auction for as high as six figures.
For Keane, looking back at that first wave of success provides little
pleasure, bringing instead only painful memories. In 1970, five years
after ending her 10-year marriage to Walter, the soft-spoken, almost
painfully shy artist revealed in a radio interview the story few had
known. In an ironic twist of art imitating life, it turned out that
Margaret Keane was herself the original "Little Miss No Name."
Walter, a self-promoter and raconteur, had sold himself as the creator
of the waifs, and the inventor of the trademark Keane Eyes, while
Margaret
received second billing for a series of Modigliani-esque women. What had
begun as a barroom boast at a San Francisco bohemian nightspot by the
one-time Realtor - "Nobody could paint eyes like El Greco, and nobody
can paint eyes like Walter Keane!" as the New York Times quoted him -
turned
into a lie that Margaret was forced to live, working long hours to
fulfill the demand for the work while Walter enjoyed the spoils of
success, hobnobbing with the rich and famous. The public image of the
artistic couple turned out to be nothing more than a carefully
cultivated sham - Walter couldn't even paint, a lie that even Margaret
had to
uncover. "A lot of what propelled the work's popularity was Walter's
showmanship .. he really understood how to take it to the next level and
reach a mass marketplace," Stallings said.
"But it was a double-edged sword. In retrospect, it put the work's
integrity into question. And unfortunately, Walter wasn't satisfied with
being the business side of the partnership. He wanted credit as the
artist, too."
Revealing her side of the story may have been healing, as was moving to
Hawaii in order to put distance between herself and her ex-husband, but
Walter continued to perpetuate that he was the progenitor and rightful
owner of the Keane kids legacy. Margaret publicly challenged him to a
painting contest in San Francisco, to which he didn't show up. Thus
began a lengthy legal battle to set the record straight and claim the
recognition she had been denied. In court, Margaret revealed that she
had gone along with the public lie during the marriage only because
Walter threatened to kill her and her daughter (by a prior marriage) if
she revealed the truth. At her lawyers' behest, Margaret sat before the
jury and painted, rendering the face of a small boy with the
unmistakable oversized eyes in less than an hour.
Challenged to demonstrate his own talents, Walter again declined to put
brush to canvas, pleading that a painful shoulder injury prevented him
from proving himself. In 1986 the jury found in Margaret's favor,
awarding her $4 million for emotional distress and the damaged
reputation she had suffered because of Walter's falseness.
These days, Keane's kids no longer shed a solitary tear. Gone are the
dark alleys and shadowy byways, the gloomy palette that once expressed
her own pain and lost innocence. It is unlikely that she will ever
collect any of the money awarded to her, but that matters little. What
is most important to her is what she has done all along, paint. If
commissioned she will paint in the style that was so popular, but
prefers now to envision the world she wants to see, a bright and joyful
paradise.
Copyright 2000 The Orange County Register
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