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Margaret Keane
Japanese Princess
1977

Name: Japanese Princess
Brand: Margaret Keane
Rating: 5 (127 reviews)

Price:$2,088

$2,400List Price

About the Item

This artwork titled "Japanese Princes" is a color lithograph by noted American artist Margaret Keane, b.1927. It is hand signed and numbered 228/300 in pencil by the artist. The image size is 28.5 x 18 inches, framed size is 40.75 x 32.75 inches. Custom framed in wooden rustic rubbed black and gold frame, with light beige matting and gold color spacer. It is in excellent condition. About the artist. Margaret D. H. Keane was born 1927 in Tennessee, and attributes her deep respect for the Bible and inspirations of her artwork to the relationship with her grandmother. She later became one of Jehovah's Witnesses, which she said changed her life for the better. In the 1960s, Margaret Keane's artwork was sold under the name of her husband, Walter Keane. He locked her in a room and forced her to paint,while taking credit for her work. Conflict over that issue was cited as one of the reasons they divorced. Neither wanting to relinquish rights to the artwork, Walter and Margaret's divorce proceedings went all the way to federal court. At the hearing, Margaret created a painting in front of the judge to prove that she was the artist. Walter declined to paint before the court, citing a sore shoulder. In 1986, the courts sided with her, enabling her to paint under her own name. Her works while living in her husband's shadow tended to depict sad children in a dark setting, but after divorcing, moving to Hawaii, and becoming one of Jehovah's Witnesses, her paintings took on a happier, brighter style. Keane is a fixture in popular culture. Some of her well-known fans over the years have included actresses Joan Crawford and Natalie Wood, whom she painted portraits of; filmmaker Tim Burton, who commissioned Keane to paint Lisa Marie; and animator Craig McCracken, whose characters the Powerpuff Girls are based on Keane's 'waifs'; additionally the Girls' schoolteacher is named "Ms. Keane". Cultural references • The American television comedy show Saturday Night Live once had a skit that featured her work, during the time when it was thought to be by her husband, as a parody of the reaction against modern art (e.g., Cubism or the New York Armory Show). "People don't look like that!" one comedian shrieks, before the picture in question was shown to the camera and audience as the punch line. • In Woody Allen's 1973 comedy Sleeper, the people of the future consider Keane to be one of the greatest artists in history, one of many references mocking the popular culture of the seventies. • Late Night with Conan O'Brien has "bumper" art in her style depicting a glum Conan O'Brien at his desk, next to a dog. • Weird Al Yankovic's song Velvet Elvis, in which the narrator says he needs "no pictures of Mexican kids with those really big eyes or dogs playing poker". • In season 3, episode 20 of 90210 (Women on the Verge), Annie is described as looking "like a Keane painting." • In the American television comedy series Newhart, Michael (played by Peter Scolari), in search of his artistic muse, has been painting obsessively. When Bob (Bob Newhart) looks at Michael's "masterpiece" his puzzled observation is "Children with big ears?" • A Keane painting is featured briefly in a music video for American band Devo's song R U Experienced?, first as an effect when lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh's head morphs to become the child from the painting, and then again shortly after as the painting hanging on the wall of a home in the video. Public collections: The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Madrid; The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo; National Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City; Musee Communal Des Beaux-Arts, Bruges; Tennessee Fine Arts Museum, Nashville, Tennessee; Brooks Memorial Museum, Memphis, Tennessee; Hawaii State Capitol, Honolulu; The United Nations, New York City and others. Solo Shows: The Brussels Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair, by special invitation of the Belgian government; Tokyo American Cultural Center in Tokyo, sponsored by the U.S. State Department; National Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid and galleries in New York, Chicago, Honolulu, Houston, San Francisco and Beverly Hills, among others. She was named a Fellow of The Society of Western Artists after exhibiting in three Annual Juried Shows in the M.H. De Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco.

Creator:
Margaret Keane (1927 - 2022, American)
Creation Year:
1977
Dimensions:
Height: 40.75 in (103.51 cm)Width: 32.75 in (83.19 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)
Medium:
Lithograph
Movement Style:
American Realist
Period:
Late 20th Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
San Francisco, CA
Reference Number:
Seller: mar/kea/jap/prin/011stDibs: LU66636389212

Shop All Margaret Keane

Margaret Keane

Margaret Keane was born Peggy Doris Hawkins on September 15, 1927, in Nashville, Tennessee. When she was two years old, her eardrum was permanently damaged during a mastoid operation. Unable to hear properly, Keane learned to watch the eyes of the person talking to her to understand them.

Keane started drawing as a child. At age 10 she took classes at the Watkins Institute in Nashville. She created her first oil painting of two little girls — one crying and one laughing — when she was 10 years old and gave the work to her grandmother. Keane became well known at the local church for her sketches of angels with big eyes and floppy wings.

At age 18 Keane attended the Traphagen School of Design in New York City for a year. She initially earned money by painting clothing and baby cribs in the 1950s until she finally began painting portraits. Early on Keane experimented with kitsch. She worked in both acrylics and oil-based paints and limited the subjects of her artwork to women, children and familiar animals (cats, dogs and horses).

Keane's paintings are recognizable by the oversized doe-like eyes of her subjects. She said she was always interested in the eyes and used to draw them in her school books. She began painting her signature "Keane eyes" when she started to create portraits of children.

"Children do have big eyes,” Keane said. “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."

Keane focused on the eyes as they better illuminate the inner person. The artist cited Modigliani's work as a major influence on the way she had painted women since 1959. Other artists who influenced her use of color, dimension and composition include Van Gogh, Picasso and Klimt. She was named a Fellow of the Society of Western Artists after exhibiting in three Annual Juried Shows in the M.H. De Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco.

Keane's works are in collections all over the world. Public collections include the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, the Tennessee Fine Arts Museum in Nashville and more.

Find original Margaret Keane paintings and prints on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by Lucille Lucas Gallery)

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