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 ...
FR is a gold mine of talent.
I'm already a millionaire. But art is to be appreciated for its aesthetics. Pictures of soup cans are expensive junk.
You clearly know what you like. And I agree with you about the soup cans. Warhol has done almost as much to destroy art as Picasso. I would still encourage you to give some thought to the artists who do the local or regional shows. Some of them are excellent, and it's a joy to develop a relationship with them. God bless.
Just doing like Jackson Pollock, but in a slightly different medium.
That is an American classic.
Could you send me the URL, so I can try to see it wherever it's hosted?
Something is wrong with my computer today. I've been sitting here for half an hour waiting for images to load, and haven't gotten one yet.
You left out needlepoint kits and air fresheners.
Bedsheets can't be too far behind.
WOW. I'd never seen that one before. Even if there had been a camera present on that night in Mississippi, no photograph could capture the truth of the moment more powerfully than Rockwell did.
It's obvious from his work that Rockwell loved America. What's less obvious -- and what so many people miss -- is that he loved not just an idealized version of it, but its reality. And he loved it enough to to get in its face when it was wrong.
I can't stop looking at the face of the one man (not sure if it's Schwerner or Goodman) who's left standing. At his courage and resolve as he stares down the men who, he must know, are about to kill him.
Rockwell was a splendid and moving painter. People don't know his work as well as they should.
I'm reading your post a little late but I got a good laugh. Yes, I did forget about Kinkade's puzzles. I'm still laughing since you brought it up.
Damn.
Wow.
Thank you for that, AAM.
It's like, psychedelic, man!
We spent HOURS putting one of those things together one Christmas. All the little pieces, splotched with dabs of LIGHT! ;-)
Yeah, I know; I also forgot the Glade scented candles, as was pointed out to me on a previous post.
And I'd be shocked if there isn't a line of inspirational checks as well.
What's next is kitchenware. Towels, oven mitts, sugar and flour canisters and cookie jars. Tea cozies. You get the idea. :-)
Just a fluffy little freakout....
Well, my kitchen is painted in buttery yellow, and I have red as an accent color, so I would choose the Warhol soup cans. I would probably place some other Campbell's kitsch (from eBay) around the room for 'balance.' How's that for an answer?
I used to think about him the same way and it is true to a certain degree. But in this time in art when excellence is rejected in favor of exaltation of the worst in man kind Rockwell is something we should be thankful for.
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