Posted on 03/24/2006 6:35:10 PM PST by aculeus
Entrepreneur artist who hangs in one in 20 US homes accused of fraud and drunken antics
"There's over 40 walls in the average American home," a business manager for the artist Thomas Kinkade once said, "and Thom says our job is to figure out how to populate every single wall in every single home and every single business throughout the world with his paintings."
Kinkade's luridly idyllic landscapes, full of quaint cottages and glowing firelight, already hang in an estimated one in 20 US homes. "In the often hurried, unsympathetic and complex world we live in, the images Thomas Kinkade paints offer a place of refuge," his company's literature purrs. "A place where the transient things of life give way to the things that matter most ... faith and family, a loving home and the people who know and love us."
Art critics have long dismissed his work as a kitsch crime against aesthetics. But now the world has grown even more "unsympathetic and complex" for the artist, who describes himself as a devout Christian and has trademarked his "Painter of Light" soubriquet. In court documents and other testimony, he has been accused of sexual harassment, fraudulent business practices and bizarre incidents of drunkenness including a habit of "ritual territory marking" that involves urinating in public places.
'Misleading picture'
A court-appointed arbitration panel has ruled in favour of two former owners of Kinkade-branded galleries, ordering his company to pay them $860,000 (£500,000) for breaching "the covenant of good faith and dealing" and failing to disclose pertinent business information.
(Excerpt) Read more at arts.guardian.co.uk ...
Uhhh, art.
oh, now I love his art. I wouldn't invest in it But I like it...My perfect hometown (in my mind) looks alot like his work:) I find it soothing and wholesome to look at but again, I wouldn't pay the prices that he asks and I certainly wouldn't hang it all over my house. tacky.
Hmm...well, I'm sure he did some bad things too...
Related thread:
Dark Portrait of a Painter of Light
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1591414/posts?page=83#83
Now, that's art!!!
I love Kinkade - there's nothing wrong with schlock that's pretty.
Maybe you've eaten from it at a high class restaurant?
I'm still trying ti figure out the lamp post.
Obey the little boy and his creepy dog!!
It's technical.
The light on the snow in front of it is supposed to be coming from the window, but it isn't casting a shadow.
. . . run for your lives!
. . . seriously, this stuff isn't even GOOD kitsch.
That's hysterical! When he first came out, I liked him. I liked how his pictures had symbolism in them. He always had light to represent Jesus as the light of the world, he had the fish and John 3:16 at the bottom of all of his pictures, and his wife's initial was in every painting but you had to look for it.
Then something happened.... his stuff was everywhere. I've been in homes where all the art is his stuff - it all looks alike after awhile. Worse, he got really commercial - calendars, mugs, t-shirts. No self-respecting artist would do that (IMHO).
I understand wanting to make money, but that's ridiculous.
I can still see the numbers.
My two dogs like this one.
He started putting the lamposts in a couple of years ago, when the buzz about "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" started. There's a lamppost which figures prominently in the story.
Geez I hate clowns!
Kinkade's 'painting of light' has always looked kind of 'glowy' to me and it just never caught my eye...that and I once stopped into one of his mall shops and was partically assailed to sign the guest book.
OK, but what's it doing on the other side of the creek? I mean what did they do put a conduit beneath the creek for the wires? What's it's supposed to be lighting? I just don't get it.
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