Thomas Kinkade (January 19, 1958 – April 6, 2012)[1] was an American painter of popular realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via The Thomas Kinkade Company. He characterized himself as "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light", a phrase he protected through trademark but one originally attributed to the English master J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)[2] He also claimed to be "America's most-collected living artist".[3] Media Arts Group — the former publicly traded company that licensed, distributed and sold Kinkade's products — claimed that 1 in 20 homes in the U.S. feature some form of Thomas Kinkade's art.[citation needed] Contents 1 Early years 2 Artistic themes and style 3 Business 3.1 Criticism of business practices 4 Related projects and partnerships 5 Personal conduct 6 Death 7 See also 8 References 9 External links [e! dit] Early years Kinkade grew up in the small town of Placerville, California, graduated from high school in 1976, and attended the University of California, Berkeley and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.[4] He married his wife Nanette in 1982 and the couple have four daughters: Merritt (b . 1988), Chandler (b. 1991), Winsor (b. 1995) and Everett (b. 1997), all named for famous artists.[4] Some of the people who mentored and taught him long before college were Charles Bell and Glenn Wessels.[4] Wessels encouraged Kinkade to go to the University of California at Berkeley. Kinkade's relationship with Wessels is the subject of a semi-autobiographical film released in 2008, The Christmas Cottage. After two years of general education at Berkeley, Kinkade transferred to the nationally renowned Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. In June 1980, Kinkade spent a summer traveling across the United States with his college friend James Gurney. The two of th! em finished their journey in New York and secured a contract w! ith Guptill Publications to produce a sketching handbook. Two years later they produced The Artist's Guide to Sketching,[4] which was one of Guptill Publications' best-sellers that year. The success of the book landed him and Gurney at Ralph Bakshi Studios creating background art for the 1983 animated feature film Fire and Ice.[4] While working on the film, Kinkade began to explore the depiction of light and of imagined worlds. After the film, Kinkade earned his living as a painter, selling his originals in galleries throughout California. [edit] Artistic themes and style A key feature of Thomas Kinkade's paintings are their glowing highlights and saturated pastel colors. Rendered in a naturalistic American Scene Painting values, his works often portray bucolic, idyllic settings such as gardens, streams, stone cottages, and Main Streets. His hometown of Placerville (where his works are omnipresent) is the setting of many of his street and snow scenes. He has also depicted v! arious Christian themes including the Christian cross and churches. Kinkade received criticism for the extent to which he had commercialized his art, for example, selling his prints on the QVC home shopping network. Others have written that his paintings are merely kitsch, without substance,[5] and have described them as chocolate box art[6] and "mall art".[7] Kinkade says he is placing emphasis on the value of simple pleasures and that his intent is to communicate inspirational, life-affirming messages through his work. A self-described "devout Christian" (all of his children have the middle name "Christian"[8]), Kinkade has said he gains his inspiration from his religious beliefs and that his work is intended to contain a larger moral dimension. He has also said that his goal as an artist is to touch people of all faiths, to bring peace and joy into their lives through the images he creates. Many pictures contain specific chapter-and-verse allusions to certain Bible passa! ges. Kinkade has said, "I am often asked why there are no people in my ! paintings",[5] but in 2009 he painted a portrait of the Indianapolis Speedway for the cover of that year's Indianapolis 500 race program that included details of the diversity of the crowd, hiding among them the figures of Norman Rockwell and Dale Earnhardt. He has also painted the farewell portrait for Yankee Stadium.[9][10] About the Indianapolis Speedway painting, Kinkade said: The passion I have is to capture memories, to evoke the emotional connection we have to an experience. I came out here and stood up on the bleachers and looked around, and I saw all the elements of the track. It was empty at the time. But I saw the stadium, how the track laid out, the horizon, the skyline of Indianapolis and the Pagoda. I saw it all in my imagination. I began thinking, 'I want to get this energy — what I call the excitement of the moment — into this painting.' As I began working on it, I thought, 'Well you have this big piece of asphalt, the huge spectator stands; I'! ve got to do something to get some movement.' So I just started throwing flags into it. It gives it kind of a patriotic excitement.[9] Mike McGee, director of the Grand Central Art Center at California State University Fullerton, has written of the Thomas Kinkade Heaven on Earth exhibition:[11] Looking just at the paintings themselves it is obvious that they are technically competent. Kinkade's genius, however, is in his capacity to identify and fulfill the needs and desires of his target audience—he cites his mother as a key influence and archetypal audience — and to couple this with savvy marketing ... If Kinkade's art is principally about ideas, and I think it is, it could be suggested that he is a Conceptual artist. All he would have to do to solidify this position would be to make an announcement that the beliefs he has expounded are just Duchampian posturing to achieve his successes. But this will never happen. Kinkade earnestly believes in his faith in ! God and his personal agenda as an artist. Artist and Guggenheim Fellow ! Jeffrey Vallance has spoken about Kinkade's devout religious themes and their reception in the art world"[12] This is another area that the contemporary art world has a hard time with, that I find interesting. He expresses what he believes and puts that in his art. That is not the trend in the high-art world at the moment, the idea that you can express things spiritually and be taken seriously ... It is always difficult to present serious religious ideas in an art context. That is why I like Kinkade. It is a difficult thing to do. Essayist Joan Didion is a representative critic of Kinkade's style:[13] A Kinkade painting was typically rendered in slightly surreal pastels. It typically featured a cottage or a house of such insistent coziness as to seem actually sinister, suggestive of a trap designed to attract Hansel and Gretel. Every window was lit, to lurid effect, as if the interior of the structure might be on fire. Didion goes on to compare the "Kinkade Glow" to th! e luminism of 19th-century painter Albert Bierstadt, who sentimentalized the infamous Donner Pass in his Donner Lake from the Summit.[14] Didion sees "unsettling similarities" between the two painters, and worries that Kinkade's own treatment of the Sierra Nevada, The Mountains Declare His Glory, similarly ignores the tragedy of the forced dispersal of Yosemite's Sierra Miwok Indians during the Gold Rush, by including an imaginary Miwok camp as what he calls "an affirmation that man has his place, even in a setting touched by God's glory."[13] [edit] Business Kinkade's works are sold by mail order and in dedicated retail outlets as high-quality prints, often using texturizing techniques on real canvas to make the surface of the finished prints mimic the raised surface of the original painting. Some of the prints also feature light effects that are painted onto the print surface by hand by "skilled craftsmen," touches that add to the illusion of light and the resemblance to ! an original work of art, and which are then sold at higher prices. Lice! nsing with Hallmark and other corporations have made it possible for Kinkade's images to be used extensively on other merchandise such as calendars, puzzles, greeting cards, and CDs. By December 2009, his images also appeared on Wal-Mart gift cards. He has also authored or been the subject of over 120 books and is the only artist to license his trademark and artwork to multiple housing developments. Kinkade is reported to have earned $53 million for his artistic work in the period 1997 to May 2005.[15] In June 2010, the Morgan Hill, California manufacturing operation that reproduces Kinkade's art filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing nearly $6.2 million in creditors' claims. The company, Pacific Metro, plans to reduce its costs by outsourcing much of its manufacturing.[16] [edit] Criticism of business practices Kinkade's company, Media Arts Group Inc., has been accused of unfair dealings with owners of Thomas Kinkade Signature Gallery franchises. In 2006, an a! rbitration board awarded Karen Hazlewood and Jeffrey Spinello $860,000 in damages and $1.2 million in fees and expenses due to Kinkade's company "[failing] to disclose material information" that would have discouraged them from investing in the gallery.[17][18][19] The award was later increased to $2.8 million with interest and legal fees.[20] The plaintiffs and other former gallery owners have also leveled accusations of being pressured to open additional galleries that were not financially viable, being forced to take on expensive, unsalable inventory, and being undercut by discount outlets whose prices they were not allowed to match. Kinkade denied the accusations and Media Arts Group successfully defended itself in previous suits by other former gallery owners. Kinkade himself was not singled out in the finding of fraud by the arbi
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One of most popular artists in America, "Pa! inter of Light" Thomas Kinkade, died Friday at his home in California, ! his family said. He was 54, and his Read the rest
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SAN FRANCISCO — Artist Thomas Kinkade, whose brushwork paintings of idyllic landscapes, cottages and churches have been big sellers for dealers across Read the rest
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SAN FRANCISCO — Artist Thomas Kinkade once said that he had something in common with Walt Disney and Norman Rockwell: He wanted to make people happy. And Read the rest
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California artist Thomas Kinkade, known for his scenes of cottages, country gardens and churches in dewy morning light, died Friday, a family spokesman Read the rest
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SAN FRANCISCO -- A family spokesman says California artist Thomas Kinkade, known for scenes of cottages, country gardens and churches in dewy morning light Read the rest
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Famed painter Thomas Kinkade is dead at the age of 54, a family spokesperson told the Associated Press. Kinkade was known for his use of light in his scenic paintings Read the rest
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One of most popular artists in America, "Painter of Light" Thomas Kinkade, died suddenly Friday at his Los Gatos home. He was 54. His family said in a Read the rest
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Thomas Kinkade (January 19, 1958 – April 6, 2012) was an American painter of popular and commercial realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects! . He is notable for the Read the rest