Margaret D. H. Keane, nata Peggy Doris Hawkins , è un'artista e pittrice statunitense i cui soggetti preferiti sono donne, bambini o animali con enormi occhi. I materiali usati sono soprattutto oli e tecniche miste.
Nella seconda metà degli anni sessanta divenne famosa in tutto il mondo per un caso di furto artistico di cui è stata protagonista insieme al marito dell'epoca, Walter Keane. Egli, infatti, si era appropriato delle opere degli orfanelli con i grandi occhi, vendendole a proprio nome. La vera artista, pur essendo inizialmente d'accordo per la convinzione che non sarebbe altrimenti riuscita a vendere le sue opere, citò comunque in giudizio l'ex-marito alla fine degli anni '80, vincendo la causa dipingendo un quadro in tribunale.
Wikipedia
“The older I get, the brighter colours I live. But in the past, they were dark, dingy, sad colours.”
KQED Arts, " Margaret Keane, Painter Behind Tim Burton's 'Big Eyes' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMKnuhNe3Pc," YouTube.com.
2014
1999, Cited by Amy M. Spindler
Contesto: 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.
“Walter was extremely charming. He could charm anybody, especially women.”
2014, Cited by Jesse Hamlin
“It was the eyes that did it. [timid giggle] I liked the way he painted eyes and he liked mine.”
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.
Cited by Jane Howard, " The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes: The Phenomenal Success of Walter Keane https://books.google.com/books?id=WFMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA39," LIFE 59, no. 9 (27 August 1965), p. 45.
1965, Cited by Jane Howard
“He can't paint eyes. He couldn't learn to paint at all.”
Cited in " The lady behind those Keane-eyed kids https://books.google.com/books?id=2FMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA56," LIFE 69, no. 21 (20 November 1970), p. 56.
1970
Interviewed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMK6aBSX2QY on The Mike Douglas Show (1972).
1972
This statement was made before the public learned that Margaret, and not Walter, was the painter of the Big Eyed waifs.
Interviewed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WgStC6fvtM by Gary E. Park (circa 1964).
Walter Keane
