
Audio only
Citizen Keane
The Big Lies behind the Big EyesBy Adam Parfrey, Cletus NelsonNarrated by Bronson PinchotLength3h 33m
About this audiobook
Teary, big-eyed orphans and a multitude of trashy knockoffs epitomized American kitsch art as they clogged thrift stores for decades.
When Adam Parfrey tracked down Walter Keane—the credited artist of the weepy waifs—for a San Diego Reader cover story in 1992, he discovered some shocking facts. Decades of lawsuits and countersuits revealed the reality that Keane was more of a con man than an artist, and that he forced his wife Margaret to sign his name to her own paintings. As a result, those weepy waifs may not have been as capricious an invention as they seemed.
Parfrey's story was reprinted in Juxtapoz magazine and inspired a Margaret Keane exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum. Director Tim Burton made a movie about the Keanes called Big Eyes, which came out in 2014.
Citizen Keane is a book-length expansion of Parfrey's original article, providing fascinating biographical and sociological details.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.9 (374)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, StoryGraph, LibraryThing
GenreBiography and Memoir, Other, True Crime
Length3 hrs 33 mins
Narrated byBronson Pinchot
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateMar 17, 2015
LanguageEnglish