Margaret Keane

Margaret D. H. Keane (born Peggy Doris Hawkins; 15 September 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. In the 1960s, Keane became one of the most popular and successful artists of the time. During this time, her artwork was sold under the name of her husband, Walter Keane, who claimed credit for her paintings. Their life together was the subject of the 2014 Tim Burton film Big Eyes.

1965

It was the eyes that did it. [timid giggle] I liked the way he painted eyes and he liked mine.
- Page 45. Stated at a time when Margaret Keane was still going along with the fraud that her husband was the painter of the Big Eyed waifs.
M, you see, is four, and D is four too, and H is eight, and four and four and eight are sixteen, which is made up of one and six, which make seven—my number.
- Page 48.

He can't paint eyes. He couldn't learn to paint at all.
- Cited in "The lady behind those Keane-eyed kids," LIFE 69, no. 21 (20 November 1970), p. 56.

I had just announced for the first time publicly on a radio show in San Francisco that I had done all the Keane paintings and not my ex-husband. And this, um, Bill Flang of the San Francisco Examiner thought that Walter and I should appear in Union Square and have a paint-off to decide who had done the paintings, since I was—said that I had done them. So, he arranged it, and LIFE magazine as there and all the different newspapers and t.v. stations and they, uh—some of them in the audience played "High Noon"—[laughs] And, of course, Walter didn't show up.
- Interviewed on The Mike Douglas Show (1972).

Amy M. Spindler, "Style; An Eye for an Eye," The New York Times (23 May 1999).

I'd have to lock the door of the paint room. He wouldn't allow anyone in. I was like a prisoner.
Gradually it dawned on me that I was painting my own inner emotions. Those children were asking: "Why are we here? What is life all about? Why is there sadness and injustice?" All those deep questions. Those children were sad because they didn't have the answers. They were searching.
A lot of art today doesn't convey much hope, and I hope mine does. I try to paint what I think the future holds and my innermost feelings about God's promise for the future.

He'd threatened me so many times. I thought he was so crazy he could hire a hit man to come get me anytime.
Walter was extremely charming. He could charm anybody, especially women.
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.
I lost all respect for him and myself, and lived in a nightmare.
I still paint sad children, because there's sadness in the world, but they have hope, and I have hope.
I finally got to the point where I decided I don't care if it's good art or bad art, it's what I do. I enjoy doing it, and people like it.

His art is in heroic bad taste. It's incredibly vulgar, it's weird, but it's still gorgeous. Bad-taste entertainment is the best entertainment. What I really love about Keane is that he is so commercial.
- This statement was made before the public learned that Margaret, and not Walter, was the painter of the Big Eyed waifs.
- Cited by Jane Howard, "The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes: The Phenomenal Success of Walter Keane," LIFE 59, no. 9 (27 August 1965), p. 42.

And Margaret, uh, has done a lot of experimenting in her work. I think, probably, no artist has experimented the way Margaret has.
- This statement was made before the public learned that Margaret, and not Walter, was the painter of the Big Eyed waifs.
- Interviewed by Gary E. Park (circa 1964).
Margaret is probably the greatest woman painter alive.
- This statement was made before the public learned that Margaret, and not Walter, was the painter of the Big Eyed waifs.
- Cited by Jane Howard, "The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes: The Phenomenal Success of Walter Keane," LIFE 59, no. 9 (27 August 1965), p. 45.

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.
- Said before the public learned that Margaret, and not Walter, was the painter of the Big Eyed waifs.
- Cited by Jane Howard, "The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes: The Phenomenal Success of Walter Keane," LIFE 59, no. 9 (27 August 1965), p. 42. Cited also by Amy M. Spindler, "Style; An Eye for an Eye," The New York Times (23 May 1999).
But what I like most about Keane, myself, is that he's mass-produced, like a factory.
- Said at a time when the public believed that Walter Keane was painting the Big Eyed waifs; to be fair, this critique properly applies to Margaret Keane, the actual painter behind the Big Eyes.
- Cited by Jane Howard, "The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes: The Phenomenal Success of Walter Keane," LIFE 59, no. 9 (27 August 1965), p. 43.

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Margaret Keane