The Real Story: Walter and Margaret Keane and the Big Eyes Paintings
Posted on December 26, 2014 at 3:16 pm
The strangest parts of the story of Walter and Margaret Keane in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes are true. Perhaps the strangest of all is that the paintings — at the time thought to be painted by Walter Keane but ultimately proven to have been painted by Margaret Keane — were so wildly successful. In large part that was due to Walter Keane’s prodigious talents as a self-promoter. But it was not until he had Margaret’s paintings of the sad-eyed children that he had something that was promotable.
As shown in the film, Margaret Keane took her daughter and left her first husband. She met Walter Keane, also divorced, at an art fair in 1955. He told everyone he was the creator of her paintings and it was not until after they were divorced in the mid-60’s that she began to tell the truth.
While in the film Walter is played by German actor Christoph Waltz, who has an accent, in real life Walter was an American, born in Lincoln, Nebraska.
As noted in the film, Margaret Keane, now 87, still paints every day and she has an art gallery where fans can buy her work. In an interview with the New York Times, she was still asking herself how she could have allowed her husband to take credit for her pictures.
Ms. Keane’s trajectory was in some ways a product of an era when women were encouraged to follow their husband’s lead, no matter the path. Although she had been painting since she was a girl, Ms. Keane believed a female artist wouldn’t sell as well as a man. She never doubted her talent — she paints to this day at her home in Napa and sells work at Keane Eyes Gallery in San Francisco — but her newfound confidence paralleled the rise of the women’s movement and an acceptance of outsider and pop artists. Deeply private and now a Jehovah’s Witness, she has an unlikely story placed her in the middle of a profound cultural shift.
The courtroom drama in real life unfolded as it does in the film, with Keane representing himself and making outrageous statements. In the real case, the judge at one point required him to be gagged, which is not shown in the film. But it did end up with both Keanes seated at easels in the courtroom and told to paint something. Margaret still has the painting she did in court that day on her wall. Its title: Exhibit 233.
Citizen Keane: The Big Lies Behind the Big Eyes
Walter Keane’s nephew has spoken up in his defense, saying that his late mother, who was married to Keane’s brother, saw Walter Keane paint and that he produced Big Eyes paintings before he met Margaret. But he does not say that he ever saw his uncle paint, and has no evidence that he was Walter, and not Margaret, who did the paintings. Walter’s daughter from an earlier marriage says that her father was not the controlling man portrayed in the film and that the Big Eyes were his idea, though Margaret did the paintings, referring to her as his “artistic apprentice.” No one outside the family has disputed the findings of the court, however.
