Thomas Kinkade, one of nation's most popular painters, dies in Los Gatos

[marions ghost]

45. And some get a queasy feeling...

Kinkade may be the greatest scam artist America has ever produced. 35 million a quarter in his heyday--now that is TALENT! He exploited the fact that Americans will buy anything if they can be sold that it's "the" thing.
So I give that to him--he was a marketing genius!

About the only thing you can say about the junk is that it is commercial shlock that at least was not produced cheap in a Chinese factory (but looks like it). Kinkades were mass-produced--his "apprentices" would line them up, paint all the skies, then paint all the trees, etc--that type of mindless factory style production. There is no difference between that and "famous french artist" Chinese factories doing knock-offs. Why his buyers did not try to get a true appraisal of the work they were buying is beyond me.

Kinkade's stuff does not rise to the level of what is called art by every true artist and art appraiser in every country in the world. But as commercial exploitation, it beats anything--Kinkade was a brilliant businessman.