Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/09/thomas-kinkade-painting-of-toi.html
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I like the way this piece prefigures his later works which always were best-suited for use as bog rolls. Can we start referring to him as The Painter of Double-Ply, Extra Soft?
Edit: grammar. Fucking punctuation.
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Painter of Light? More like Painter of Dark! Am I right?
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It’s very ironic that this is the least shitty painting he ever did.
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Well there you have it. End of times, global pandemic, art in context and i STILL wouldn’t wipe my ass with it.
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So it’s come to this, has it?
You could probably soak the puzzle pieces and box for a few days, mash it, spread it on a few window screens to dry, cut it into strips and roll it up.
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The tragedy of Kincade was always that he was in fact a talented painter who chose to paint only crowd-pleasers that could be easily licensed for mass production.
Please note, I’m not saying an artist shouldn’t get paid! If he’d made those painting-equivalent potboilers on assembly line and turned out only one interesting canvas every couple of years (or less!) there would be no tragedy. It’s the waste of actual talent that makes me want to weep.
That is a fine, fine portrait of a toilet paper roll.
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Hang it next to your print of the gaseous emissions of Uranus.
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How about it’s a soon-to-be-shitty painting?
As in, I wouldn’t wipe my ass with that soon-to-be-shitty painting.
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“Charity”.
A guy who was widely accused of fraud, misrepresenting himself, sketchy business practices. The organization that was at the heart of a lot of that sketchyness.
I’m sure that money will end up where it’s supposed to.
I’m not sure I buy that. I’ve seen some absolutely brutal take downs of his work on technical/form grounds. And his company/charity whatever the hell it is, openly admitted that he basically just provided a layout to a factory setting where “assistants” finished things off for the bulk of what was sold in galleries. While no one’s managed to prove anything there’s evidence certain assistants were responsible even for originals or work claimed to be directly from his hand.
I’m sure at a certain point he was painting something. But everything about the Kinkade organization is rumor and spin around a lot of financial misdealings and false claims.
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And his company/charity whatever the hell it is, openly admitted that he basically just provided a layout to a factory setting where “assistants” finished things off for the bulk of what was sold in galleries.
You do realize that’s how pretty much all the great artists of history worked, right? They had workshops. Not saying that Kinkade deserves to be up there with them, but that’s how art works. The idea of a lone genius in art makes as little sense as a lone scientist.
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From what I’ve read Kinkade went above and beyond that. Factory works produced as purported copies of originals that don’t seem to have existed before their existence was questioned. Multiple grades of “collectible” prints/copies all sourced from the same assembly line. More expensive “collectible” works purportedly by his own hand that he may have had no involvement in. The “workshop” never visited or contracted out in China, “assistants” never met. And the layouts provided being more along the line of the Disney animators style guide than an actual sketch, partial painting, or paint by numbers situation.
All of that deliberately obscured with marketing speak. Far more copies of things than their claimed limited release. Sold in mall galleries under a predatory franchise agreement.
Well beyond even what Warhol did with the open, deliberate non-involvement in the Factory works. Especially since that was Warhol’s point, where as Kinkade’s seemed to be over charging for the sort of mass produced decorations you can get at Staples.
Kincaid was a different kind of sketchy when he was younger. James Gurney of Dinotopia fame and Kincaid spent a year travelling the country riding freight cars like hobos. Together they published a great book on sketching . https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Sketching-Gurney-Kinkade-Thomas/dp/B000KV44Z6 They also worked together as background artists on those Ralh Bashki animated films.
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Yes, of his “Painter of Light” drek. It had no redeeming value, even if any of it had been his own, which is debatable. I’m not saying he was ever going to be the new Picasso, but before he hit on his Winning Formula, he did show talent.
I will assert confidently here that I have never seen a finer portrait of a roll of toilet paper than this.
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I actually like it quite a bit.
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