Margaret Keane
Margaret Keane was born in Nashville, Tn in September of 1927. Her paintings are mostly of children who have large, round eyes. She and her husband Frank Ulbrich divorced in 1955 and she took her daughter Jane to California for a new life. There she started selling portraits and paintings of people in North Beach, located in San Francisco. In 1955 Keane also met and married Walter Keane, and they eloped in Honolulu, Hawaii. Walter took a liking to Margaret’s paintings and began to claim them as his own, and quickly climbed to fame. He began selling inexpensive copies of the paintings, and copies of them on cups and plates.
Margaret began resenting Walter and wanted her paintings back and wanted everyone to know that they were hers. When Walter refused to tell the truth, she began creating paintings of a different style. While the eyes were still a little larger than normal, they didn’t depict children anymore, they rather portrayed adult women, that sometimes modeled after Margret herself. In 1965, she asked for a divorce from Walter and took him to court. This was to prove that she was the real artist of the paintings, not Walter. She got her name and paintings back, and Walter was left disgraced.
In 2014, a movie, produced by Tim Burton called Big Eyes, was produced and Margaret Keane was the center subject. It received a seven out of ten on IMDB and a seventy-two percent rating on Rotten Tomato. Margaret is still alive and well, Walter having passed away in December of 2000.
Margaret Keane and Amy Adams Walter and Margaret Keane
