Walter Keane
| Walter Keane | |
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| Born |
Walter Stanley Keane October 7, 1915 Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S. |
| Died | December 27, 2000 (aged 85) Encinitas, California, U.S. |
| Known for | Plagiarism |
| Spouse(s) | Barbara Ingham Margaret Keane (m. 1955–65) Joan Mervin |
Walter Stanley Keane (October 7, 1915 – December 27, 2000) was an American plagiarist, who became famous in the 1960s, as the claimed painter of a series of widely reproduced paintings depicting vulnerable waifs with enormous eyes. The paintings were in fact painted by his wife Margaret Keane. When she made this fact public, Walter Keane retaliated with a USA Today article that again claimed he had done the work.
In 1986 Margaret Keane sued Walter and USA Today. In the subsequent slander suit, the judge demanded that the litigants paint a painting in the courtroom, but Walter declined, citing a sore shoulder. Margaret then produced a painting for the jurors in 53 minutes. The jury awarded her damages of $4 million.
Keane was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in October 7, 1915, one of 10 children from his father's second marriage. His mother, Alma Christina (Johnson) Keane, was from Denmark; and his father, William Robert Keane, was of Irish descent. Keane grew up near the center of Lincoln and made money by selling shoes. In the early 1930s, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he attended Los Angeles City College. He moved to Berkeley, California, in the 1940s with his wife, Barbara (née Ingham), and went into real estate; both were real estate brokers.
Their first child, a son, died shortly after birth in the hospital. In 1947, they had a healthy baby girl, Susan Hale Keane. In July 1948, Walter and Barbara bought the stately John J. Cairns House at 2729 Elmwood Avenue, designed by Berkeley architect Walter H. Ratcliff, Jr. In 1948, the Keanes traveled to Europe, living in Heidelberg and later Paris. When they returned to their home in Berkeley, they began an educational toy business called "Susie Keane's Puppeteens", teaching children to speak French through the use of handmade puppets, phonograph records and a book. The "ballroom" of their large home became an assembly line of hand-painted wide-eyed wooden puppets, with various intricately made costumes. The puppets were sold in high-end stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue.
Barbara Keane later became head of her own department in dress design at the University of California, Berkeley. Walter Keane subsequently closed both his real estate firm and the toy company, in order to work full-time on his painting. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1952. At a fairground in 1953, Walter met an artist making charcoal sketches, Margaret (Doris Hawkins) Ulbrich. Margaret married Walter Keane in 1955. They separated on November 1, 1964. During their marriage and for a time afterward, Walter sold his wife's highly stylized "big eyes" paintings as his own, making the couple millions of dollars over the years. Walter Keane married his third wife, Joan Mervin, after his divorce from Margaret in 1965. They had two children in the early 1970s, while living in London. This marriage also ended in divorce.
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