, Ms. Keane’s talent remained virtually unknown to everyone but her husband, Walter Keane. A former real estate agent with a genius for promotion, he was more con artist than real artist, a fraudster who falsely took credit for her work., “and then it was too late to say it wasn’t him who painted them. I’ll always regret that I wasn’t strong enough to stand up for my rights.”
Ms. Keane’s work was credited with influencing pop surrealists such as Mab Graves and Mark Ryden, and with shaping the big-eyed look of the animated Cartoon Network series “The Powerpuff Girls,” which featured a schoolteacher character named after Ms. Keane. Director Tim Burton, who collected her paintings, later introduced her art to younger generations with his 2014 movie, “Big Eyes,” which starred Amy Adams as Ms. Keane and Christoph Waltz as her husband.
At Walter Keane’s suggestion, Ms. Keane tried to teach him how to paint the big-eyed waifs. He was unable to do it and blamed her for being a bad teacher. “Finally I went along with it,” she recalled. “And it was just tearing me apart.” Her ex-husband didn’t take her up on that offer. But after he continued to insist he had originated the big-eye style, suggesting to USA Today that Ms. Keane was taking credit for the pictures simply because she thought he was dead, Ms. Keane sued him for libel, leading to the 1986 paint-off at a federal court in Honolulu.After painting a small big-eyed boy in 53 minutes — “the fastest I ever painted in my life” — Ms. Keane was awarded a $4 million judgment.
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