Sometimes I get sad eyes. Status: Really Keane!

Isn't it weird how coincidences happen?  My friend Joanna (you may remember her from the picture of her in the circular green Milo Baughman chair) recently gave me a great Keane print that was just hangin' around her apartment (picture after the jump); well,  just this week I found a signed and numbered limited edition Margaret Keane lithograph in a local thrift store- Major score!

This lithograph is titled "Little Friends", it is numbered 67 of 625 and has Margaret Keane's initials in pencil below the gallery name.

According to the certificate of authenticity (the "provenance" in the art world) this lithograph was printed in 1962 but not released until 1991 by the Keane estate.  That would be about 6 years after Margaret Keane won her federal court case that proved she had painted the "sad/ big eyes" artwork and not her ex-husband Walter Keane, who had long claimed to be the artist.  She won the case by actually making a "sad/ big eyes" painting in the courtroom; when the judge asked Walter to also execute a painting, he claimed that his shoulder was sore so he couldn't paint (pwand!).

Here is the beautiful print "Waiting for Grandma" that Joanna so kindly gave to me.

I love how this was framed; the gold frame picks up the ocher background of the print and the black matt pulls you to all of the black in the image (I worked at an museum for seven years).

Other neat-o Keane-o facts

Margaret Keane has painted portraits for Hollywood stars (Joan Crawford, Natalie Wood and Tim Burton had her paint Lisa Marie Presley), she is still alive and painting in Hawaii.  The Powerpuff Girls were based on Margaret's big eyes work and, as a subtle nod/ wink, the Powerpuff Girl's teacher was named "Ms. Keane".  In Woody Allen's satirical send-up of the 1970's "Sleeper", In the future Margaret Keane is considered the most important artist in history.  Kate Hudson will be portraying Margaret in a motion picture titled "Big Eyes".