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Citizen Keane
The Big Lies behind the Big Eyes
Author: Adam Parfrey; Cletus Nelson
Narrator: Bronson Pinchot
Unabridged: 3 hr 33 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Published: 03/17/2015
Synopsis
Teary, big-eyed orphans and a multitude of trashy knockoffs epitomized American kitsch art as they clogged thrift stores for decades.
When Adam Parfrey tracked down Walter Keanethe credited artist of the weepy waifsfor a San Diego Reader cover story in 1992, he discovered some shocking facts. Decades of lawsuits and countersuits revealed the reality that Keane was more of a con man than an artist, and that he forced his wife Margaret to sign his name to her own paintings. As a result, those weepy waifs may not have been as capricious an invention as they seemed.
Parfreys story was reprinted in Juxtapoz magazine and inspired a Margaret Keane exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum. Director Tim Burton made a movie about the Keanes called Big Eyes, which came out in 2014.
Citizen Keane is a book-length expansion of Parfreys original article, providing fascinating biographical and sociological details.