Soon after their divorce in the 1960s, Margaret claimed credit, which was established after a courtroom "paint-off" in Hawaii, in which Walter refused to participate.
[2] A resurgence of interest in Margaret Keane's work followed the release of Tim Burton's 2014 biopic Big Eyes.
She maintained a gallery in San Francisco which boasts "the largest collection of Margaret Keane's art in the entire world.
"[3] In light of the great gulf between her work's popularity and its critical lampooning, she was sometimes referred to as the "Wayne Newton of the art world.
She worked in both acrylic and oil-based paints, with the subject of her artwork limited to women, children, and familiar animals (cats, dogs, horses).
At the height of his popularity, Walter said he saw her sitting alone at a well known North Beach bistro and he was attracted by her large eyes.
[16] Margaret said that he began selling her characteristic "big eyes" paintings immediately but, unknown to her, claimed it was his own work.
Displaying his talent for promotion, during that trip he arranged for a showing in August at the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago and another in a small East Side gallery for the same month.
"[18] A large painting commissioned for the 1964–65 World's Fair in New York had a procession of doe-eyed waifs from the horizon to the foreground, where they lined up on a staircase.
The art critic of The New York Times, John Canaday, described Keane as a painter celebrated "for grinding out formula pictures of wide-eyed children of such appalling sentimentality that his product has become synonymous among critics definition of tasteless hack work.
At the trial, the judge famously ordered both Margaret and Walter to each create a big-eyed painting in the courtroom, to determine who was telling the truth.
"[24][26][27] A federal appeals court upheld the verdict of defamation in 1990, but overturned the $4 million damages award.
[28] The artworks Margaret Keane created while living in the shadow of her husband tended to depict sad-looking children in dark settings.
After she left Walter, she moved to Hawaii and became a Jehovah's Witness, after years of following astrology, palmistry, handwriting analysis, and transcendental meditation,[4] and her work took on a happier, brighter style.
"[4] Hollywood actors Joan Crawford, Natalie Wood, and Jerry Lewis commissioned Keane to paint their portraits.
[32] Keane's art was bought and presented to the United Nations Children's Fund in 1961 by the Prescolite Manufacturing Corporation.
Other artists who influenced her in terms of color, dimension, and composition include Vincent van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, and Pablo Picasso.
[11] Despite her claims to fine art, she was never a critical success; instead she remained "known for her sticky-sweet paintings of doe-eyed waifs that became the middlebrow rage in the late 1950s and 1960s, then kitschy collectibles of ironic style decades later.