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Thomas Kinkade, one of nation's most popular painters, dies suddenly in Los Gatos at 54
mercurynews.com ^ | April 6, 2012 | Mike Rosenberg

Posted on 04/06/2012 8:34:22 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY

Thomas Kinkade, the "Painter of Light" and one of most popular artists in America, died suddenly Friday at his Los Gatos home. He was 54.

His family said in a statement that his death appeared to be from natural causes.

"Thom provided a wonderful life for his family,'' his wife, Nanette, said in a statement. "We are shocked and saddened by his death.''

His paintings are hanging in an estimated 1 of every 20 homes in the United States. Fans cite the warm, familiar feeling of his mass-produced works of art, while it has become fashionable for art critics to dismiss his pieces as tacky. In any event, his prints of idyllic cottages and bucolic garden gates helped establish a brand -- famed for their painted high lights -- not commonly seen in the art world.

"I'm a warrior for light," Kinkade told the Mercury News in 2002, alluding not just to his technical skill at creating light on canvas but to the medieval practice of using light to symbolize the divine. "With whatever talent and resources I have, I'm trying to bring light to penetrate the darkness many people feel."

(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: badart; inepttalent; kitsch; lowtaste; obit; obituary; rip; thomaskinkade
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Most of his stuff was goopy. But I could live with this one:


21 posted on 04/06/2012 9:07:40 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("Real men are not threatened by strong women." -- Sarah Palin)
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To: Free ThinkerNY; a fool in paradise
OH, nose!


22 posted on 04/06/2012 9:08:12 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: Essie

Yep.


23 posted on 04/06/2012 9:11:29 PM PDT by unkus (Silence Is Consent)
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To: Drango

>>His “art” was vapid and sophomoric.<<

I see you know as much about art as you do taxation and economics.

You really should go back to DU/KOS and not spew your filth and hate here.


24 posted on 04/06/2012 9:11:53 PM PDT by freedumb2003 ('RETRO' Abortions = performed on 84th trimester individuals who think killing babies is a "right.")
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To: Free ThinkerNY

I’m sad for his family and their loss.

That said, he is going to have an incredible Easter.


25 posted on 04/06/2012 9:12:05 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: paul51; Drango

So you’re the two on the site that everyone told me about.


26 posted on 04/06/2012 9:13:22 PM PDT by bramps (Newt is the one)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
The Kinkj of Kitsch is dead!


27 posted on 04/06/2012 9:13:49 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: Revolting cat!

LOL


28 posted on 04/06/2012 9:14:11 PM PDT by Drango (A liberal's compassion is limited only by the size of someone else's wallet.)
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To: Drango

I could maybe see such a comment for an obvious enemy, but really? The guy employed a lot of people up and down the line, and contributed to the economy, and a lot of people enjoyed what he made.

Or is there some other reason you just had to slip that in? Maybe you don’t like people who discuss their work in the context of their faith?


29 posted on 04/06/2012 9:15:23 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Photograph of Lombard Street, San Francisco

Kincaid's Painting

30 posted on 04/06/2012 9:16:07 PM PDT by Rudder
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To: Drango

Watch it, pal! He was a Rembrandt and Beethoven to the local flea market art con-a-sewers!


31 posted on 04/06/2012 9:16:30 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: Essie

I’m an art historian by education and have worked as a consultant to private parties seeking to buy art works.

I alway tell my clients to buy art that they love rather than what they think will be an investment.

Buying for investment purposes sounds good in general, but the reality is having to pass by something daily that you may come to hate. Buy what you love.

That said, I always told them that they should buy the best that an artist produced. Whenever someone insisted on buying Kinkade, I tried to direct them to his early work in oils, as that is considered his best work. If nothing was available on the market at that time, I would suggest Maxfield Parrish.

Never, never, never buy something called a ‘collectible’ anything! It is a waste of you money and has little to no resale value.


32 posted on 04/06/2012 9:16:30 PM PDT by SatinDoll (No Foreign Nationals as our President!)
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To: arasina; Drango

>>His “vapid and sophomoric” art is loved by many people, not for being deemed worthy by people such as you, but for its simple goodness.<<

drango, like so many of his liberal ilk, thinks of himself as an effete, but his words betray him as a child in a museum repeating lessons his mommy taught him that to colored dots on an orange background is “intellectual” while comforting and lovely art is for the proletariat.

As always, the liberals who root for the masses on the sidelines are snobbish elite - the self-appointed Bourgeois who won’t even accept the irony of that designation. Not only that but they are the priggish elite with no sense of taste at all. But they buy into the base shucksterism of fast talking “artists” who possess not a whit of talent. Which is hilarious when you see a $250,000 painting over their mantle that is new-age schlock.

We almost need drango here as an example for our children of what not to be.


33 posted on 04/06/2012 9:20:20 PM PDT by freedumb2003 ('RETRO' Abortions = performed on 84th trimester individuals who think killing babies is a "right.")
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To: Secret Agent Man
Maybe you don’t like people who discuss their work in the context of their faith?

? Seriously?? I didn't care for his art and you extrapolate that into me not caring for his art in the context of his faith? Overreach much??

34 posted on 04/06/2012 9:21:01 PM PDT by Drango (A liberal's compassion is limited only by the size of someone else's wallet.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Another contemporary artist that has a special way with light is John Bampfield.


35 posted on 04/06/2012 9:21:50 PM PDT by Bobalu (It is not obama we are fighting, it is the media.)
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To: LibsRJerks

Sounds like alcohol-induced bipolar behavior, or Tourettes.

Sounds like he had his own personal demons. His general life, he seems to have been able to fight them off pretty well.

As for the ‘codpiece’ comment at Siegfried and Roy, well, c’mon, they were probably just excited to see each other. Are we sure Sig and Roy weren’t the ones asking for a codpiece?, or that one they were wearing fell off into the audience?


36 posted on 04/06/2012 9:21:50 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

RIP

I loved all his paintings.


37 posted on 04/06/2012 9:23:03 PM PDT by Irish Eyes
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To: Revolting cat!

Art has had her revenge on schlock. He had so many utterly dopey paintings, such as the one below, of buildings improbably placed feet away from mountain streams (all ready to be flooded come spring thaw) with no visible means of vehicular or sometimes even pedestrian approach or parking (such as one painting of a church in a similar sylvan setting plopped down as though having been dropped into the scene from a UFO after a bizarre case of churchnapping). I’ve seen some of these paintings in person, so to speak, at Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado as well as the for-sale-to-Kinkade-”art”-lovers-hankering-for-a-piece-of-his-talent genuine canvas-grained reproductions (in the FOTF gift shop) upon which the artist personally dabbed a bit of paint. For all of his supposed wonderful luminosity, just go to some museum such as The Art Institute of Chicago and look at real paintings by real artists who had taken the time to master technique rather than market minimum competence paintings to the masses starved by op and pop and yearning for a little representationalism.


38 posted on 04/06/2012 9:23:42 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: Free ThinkerNY

I loved his paintings. Well, most of them. RIP, Sir.


39 posted on 04/06/2012 9:24:54 PM PDT by ReneeLynn (Socialism is SO yesterday. Fascism, it's the new black. Mmm mmm mmm...)
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To: Revolting cat!

That is hilarious. I laughed out loud.


40 posted on 04/06/2012 9:25:45 PM PDT by Shannon
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