America’s most popular — and richest — artist died in California on Friday at age 54. But unless you’re an aficionado of kitsch, you may not have been familiar with Thomas Kinkade. He made many, many millions by painting pictures that deftly catered to mass tastes but caused outbreaks of aesthetic hives in those who look to art for something more than syrupy sweetness, corny theatrics and unnatural scenes of rural bliss.

The Middlebury College Museum of Art presented a sampling of Kinkade’s work in 2009, with curators proceeding from the premise that his popularity warranted thoughtful appraisal. The nonjudgmental approach did help illuminate the reasons why the self-styled “painter of light” was so successful in market terms. But Kinkade, who actually functioned more as a corporation than as an individual creator, was a terrible painter in the ways that matter most. The organizers of the Middlebury show surely knew that, and their unwillingness to say it seemed disingenuous.

Image courtesy of Middlebury College Museum of Art for Seven Days’ review of “Making Sense of Thomas Kinkade.”

 

This article appears in The Money Issue April 2012 (Theme Issue).

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Kevin J. Kelley is a contributing writer for Seven Days, Vermont Business Magazine and the daily Nation of Kenya.

8 replies on “America’s Most Popular Artist Heads to Heaven”

  1. You have to hand it to the guy, he made bank off the bad taste of americans.  Very smart.

  3. His images look like joyful fantasy; fairy tails.  Why don’t we write an article about how people that write kids’ stories and fantasy novels aren’t real “authors” and their work is a pile of crap? Let me guess- those things are “classics”.  He made a lot of money because there are enough depressing works of art out there.  Some people live simple lives, and want to look at something that is beautiful and makes them feel good.  Sure, it’s not deep, but neither are most things in the media today.  Why single out one artist?

  4. What a snotty article!  I’m no Kincaid fan, but who I am to decide for others what art is and isn’t?  It’s all in the eye of the beholder.  Sounds like the folks at Middlebury had it right – put it out there, and let folks decide for themselves what they think – and I have more respect for them than for Mr. Kelley, who apparently thinks highly enough of himself and his arts credentials to call Kincaid “a terrible painter in the ways that matter most.”  What a putz!

  5. Is an In Memoriam really the proper place for a snarky critique? I didn’t realize I was reading a college newspaper.

  6. You people are being unfair to Kevin Kelley.  For God’s sake he writes an article every week and the he teaches a journalism class!  He’s very very important!

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