Margaret D. H. Keane was an American artist known for her paintings of subjects with big eyes. She mainly painted women, children, or animals in oil or mixed media. The work achieved commercial success through inexpensive reproductions on prints, plates, and cups. It has been critically acclaimed but also criticized as formulaic and cliché. The artwork was originally attributed to Keane's then-husband, Walter Keane. Soon after their divorce in the 1960s, Margaret claimed credit, which was established after a court "paint-off" in Hawaii.
Keane at her art studio
Walter Stanley Keane was an American plagiarist who became famous in the 1960s as the claimed painter of a series of widely reproduced paintings depicting vulnerable subjects with enormous eyes. The paintings are now accepted as having been painted by his wife, Margaret Keane. When she told her side of the story, Walter Keane retaliated with a USA Today article that again claimed he had done the work.
Walter Keane