Framed Margaret Keane Serigraph "Alone" (1962)

Margaret D. H. Keane (born Margaret Doris Hawkins, American, 1927-2022). "Alone" serigraph (silkscreen print) on board, 1962. Edition 34 of 500. Hand-signed at left. Gallery stamp, edition number (34/500), artist copyright, and inventory number on verso. A serigraph by Margaret Keane titled "Alone." A pale-haired child in a yellow shift sits barefoot and hunched on a huge flight of weathered plank stairs, hugging her knees. She looks out at the viewer with the enormous, dark, glistening eyes that made Keane famous. The steps run diagonally across the sheet toward a night sky of indigo and slate cloud, lit by a pale full moon and scattered stars. Blue, gray, and chalky white dominate, broken only by the soft gold of the dress. The silkscreen reproduces the heavy, palette-knife texture of the original painting. The print is signed "MDH Keane" in the image at lower left and numbered 34 of an edition of 500 on the verso. It hangs in a gilt wood frame with a velvet-covered liner and cast floral corner ornaments. Margaret Doris Hawkins was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1927. An ear operation at age two permanently damaged her hearing, and she learned to read faces closely, especially eyes, to follow what people said. She drew constantly as a child, took classes at the Watkins Institute at ten, and later studied at the Traphagen School of Design in New York. In the 1950s she settled in San Francisco, where her paintings of children, women, and animals with enormous, luminous eyes found a mass audience. Her husband, Walter Keane, was a gifted promoter who sold the work as his own, and she stayed silent for roughly a decade. Paintings from those years were signed simply "Keane" and sold to the public as Walter's. Compositions first painted in this period, as the image here is recorded to have been, would originally have been credited to him. The paintings spread through galleries, celebrity commissions, prints, and souvenirs. Critics were scornful, though Andy Warhol was a notable defender. She left Walter in 1964 and moved to Hawaii with her daughter, Jane. She began signing her work "MDH Keane," the form that appears on this print, and in 1970 she publicly claimed authorship of the work. Walter did not appear for a proposed paint-off in San Francisco's Union Square. In 1986 she won a defamation suit in a Honolulu court, where she painted a big-eyed child in under an hour while Walter declined, citing a sore shoulder. The $4 million award was later overturned on appeal, but the verdict established her authorship. She became a Jehovah's Witness in 1972, and her later paintings grew brighter in mood. Tim Burton's 2014 film "Big Eyes" renewed interest in her story, and she received a lifetime achievement award at the LA Art Show in 2018. She died at her home in Napa, California, on June 26, 2022, at the age of 94. Item # 205499

Stima:€892.77

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