I agree. We here on FR like to pride ourselves on being individual thinkers yet when someone posts a hit piece on someone we seem to dutifully follow whatever the writer suggests. If someone posted a newsflash that Reagan killed a puppy, everyone would say well thats it, Reagan is now at the top of my s—t list. I like Kinkaids works, too. My daughter has 2 of his paintings in her living room and they are beautiful and tasteful. 99.99% of artists are not going to be another Picasso or even do much more than break even on their work. Kinkaid found a way to make a lot of money on probably mediocre paintings. If there is some type of Kinkaid work in 1 in 10 households, he has managed to brilliantly market his product and I say good for him. I have a Kinkaid lamp and a Kinkaid checkbook cover and he made money when I bought them. He may not be another Picasso but he is a good businessman and if people want his product than it must be a pretty good product. I just wonder how much the current hatred toward all things Christain has to do with his current troubles.
Looks like he's in the hole to the tune of millions and has legal troubles for debt and fraud.
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.