Margaret Keane
| Margaret Keane | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Peggy Doris Hawkins September 15, 1927 Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Residence | Napa County, California |
| Other names | Peggy Ulbrich MDH Keane Margaret McGuire |
| Occupation | Artist |
| Spouse(s) |
Frank Richard Ulbrich (m. 1948–55) Walter Keane (m. 1955–65) Daniel Francis McGuire (m. 1970) |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | www |
Margaret D. H. Keane (born Peggy Doris Hawkins, September 15, 1927) is an American artist. Creator of the "big-eyed waifs", Keane is famous for drawing paintings with big eyes, and mainly paints women, children and animals in oil or mixed media.
Keane was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Keane started drawing as a child and began taking art lessons at age 10. As an adult she studied at Watkins Art Institute in Nashville and Traphagen School Of Design in New York City. Keane painted her first oil painting of two little girls, one crying and one laughing, when she was 10 years old and gave the drawing to her grandmother. Keane still has the painting today. She was well known at the local church for her sketches of angels with big eyes and floppy wings.
Keane's paintings are recognizable by the oversized, doe-like eyes of her subjects. Keane says she was always interested in the eyes and used to draw them in her school books. She began painting her signature "Keane eyes" when she started painting portraits of children. "Children do have big eyes. When I'm doing a portrait, the eyes are the most expressive part of the face. And they just got bigger and bigger and bigger", Keane said. Keane focused on the eyes, as they show the inner person more. Keane attributes Amedeo Modigliani's work as a major influence on the way she has painted women since 1959. Other artists who influenced her in use of color, dimension and composition include Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt and Picasso.
In the 1960s, Keane became one of the most popular and successful artists of the time. Andy Warhol said "I think what Keane has done is just terrific. It has to be good. If it were bad, so many people wouldn't like it." During this time her artwork was sold under the name of her husband, Walter Keane, who claimed credit for her paintings. At the height of the artworks' popularity, she was painting non-stop for 16 hours a day.
In 1970, Keane announced on a radio broadcast she was the real creator of the paintings that had been attributed to her ex-husband Walter Keane. After Keane revealed the truth, a "paint-out" between Margaret and Walter was staged in San Francisco's Union Square, arranged by Bill Flang, a reporter from the San Francisco Examiner and attended by the media and Margaret. Walter did not show up. In 1986, she sued both Walter and USA Today in federal court for an article claiming Walter was the real artist. At the trial, the judge famously ordered both Margaret and Walter to each create a big-eyed painting in the courtroom, to determine who was telling the truth. Walter declined, citing a sore shoulder, whereas Margaret completed her painting in 53 minutes. After a three-week trial, the jury awarded her $4 million in damages. After the verdict Keane said "I really feel that justice has triumphed. It's been worth it, even if I don't see any of that four million dollars." A federal appeals court upheld the verdict of defamation in 1990, but overturned the $4 million damage award. Keane says she doesn't care about the money and just wanted to establish the fact that she had done the paintings.
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