Citizen Keane

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What to expect

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.

Critics Review

  • “This stunning investigative report pulls back the
    curtain of maudlin decorative kitsch to reveal the hedonistic and depraved
    stylings of a true American mountebank.”

    Frank Kozik, renowned graphic artist

  • “Here’s the story of ‘Big-Eyed Art’…I’ve been waiting for this book for twenty-five years.”

    Long Gone John

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