Posted on 06/16/2010 4:14:36 AM PDT by Loyalist
The painter of light has entered a dark period. Thomas Kinkade, the self-proclaimed (and trademarked) Painter of Light, is beset with legal troubles. Several years ago, art gallery owners successfully sued his Kinkades Media Arts Group for millions after it was revealed that he and company officials used invoked God and their higher calling to hide the financial risks of the investments.
The settlement put such a strain on his company that earlier this month, he filed for bankruptcy protection from his hundreds of other creditors. Adding to his woes, the artist was arrested on a DUI charge outside his home in Carmel, California.
What sets this news apart from similarly tragic human interest stories is that Kinkade is one of the most financially successful artists in the world. As his website proclaims, Kinkade is Americas most collected living artist. He has sold over ten million works and his art or licensed product (which includes wallpaper, tableware, stationary, and La-Z-Boy chairs and sofas) is estimated to be in one in ten homes in the United States. He has even inspired a novel (Cape Light), a TV-movie (Home for Christmas), and planned communities (The Gates of Coeur dAlene in Coeur dAlene, Idaho, and The Village at Hiddenbrooke outside of San Francisco, and others).
His admirers are legion, especially among evangelical Christians. As an evangelical, I was aware that he was popular but had no idea how much religious devotion he inspired until I expressed my disapproval of the artists oeuvre.
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No doubt many people who would praise a rich, popular, establishment-approved hack like Andy Warhol despise Kinkade for being a rich, popular, evangelical-approved hack. But I think a solid case against Kinkade can be made on purely aesthetic criteria, especially when you compare his work to a superior artist.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
Those a very nice paintings. Especially the Evening Solitude. That one sort of reminds me of some of the paintings put on the Winchestor Calendars years ago...
Looks like he's in the hole to the tune of millions and has legal troubles for debt and fraud.
Sac/Bee reported Kinkade's company owes 1,000-5,000 creditors a total of $10-50 million, according to bankruptcy documents. A list of creditors more than 100 pages long was appended to the bankruptcy filing.
His company sold art gallery franchises that promised millions in sales.....he then sold his artworks in other venues at much cheaper prices....the gallery owners felt deceived, and filed suit.
Regulator - you're either an artist or a writer - that comment is waaaay to good for an ordinary hack.
Try reading some truly sick bash-Rush Limbaugh comments that are popping up on multitudinous threads.
Leni
LOL - Too cool!
Freepers, here’s what you need to know about the artworld:
The elitists consider Andy Warhol a genius, while Norman Rockwell is considered “campy” and or “maudlin”....
That is great! LOL!!!
Thanks. That answers my questions.
Very little. Kinkade's problems, aside from the DUI, stem from two issues. The first is that he sold non-original works as original. He would take a single painting, reproduce it multiple times, have an assistant daub some paint on it in a few places, and sell it as an original painting. The difference between an original painting and a reproduction in terms of value is astronomical for a known name. Example: An original Norman Rockwell painting goes for over a million. An original Norman Rockwell sketch is 100K. A Norman Rockwell giclee is fifteen bucks. Kinkade sold disguised prints as original paintings.
Second, Kinkade made multiple deals that flooded the market with his works. This may not be a crime. Peter Max did it in the late 60s. What it depends upon is the contracts. When he first started opening galleries, it seemed like a stupid business decision to me (I was an Art major) because no artist could possibly keep up with the demand of putting original works in multiple galleries dedicated to that single artist (there were two within a hundred miles of each other off I-35 in Texas, I have no idea how many nationwide.) It was obvious that Kinkade was a fad. Like Peter Max, after the public was sated of his endless, almost identical paintings, there was no way the galleries could survive. The lawsuits were about two things: the fraud of selling reproductions as originals, and violation of the original terms of contract because Kinkade, rather than allowing protected territories, opened competing galleries within a specified area AND sold works to those competing galleries at such discount prices that the other galleries were selling "originals" at below what the original contractors could purchase "originals." It would have been cheaper for the original gallery owners to purchase paintings from the later franchisees to resell than to purchase them from Kinkade direct.
The original gallery owners sued, claiming Kinkade had violated the terms of their contract, and a court agreed. The people who sued him were Christians who were originally big fans of his work, and invested everything they had in his galleries.
These lawsuits are about fraud and deception on the part of Kinkade, and have nothing to do with any bias about his work.
And greed!
Not a Kinkade fan - but that JB winter scene is lovely.
What year was it painted?
1996
Saying “a CBS 60 Minutes segment” or “SAC/BEE reported” is not providing sources.
It helps......for those who do a search.....
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