Defend the indefensible - Thomas Kinkade

Hmmm...

I actually kind of like the fact that he's making people who otherwise would have no use for art of any kind aware that there is contemporary painting, and even more so attepting to make painting into something like a mass medium that could have the kind of cultural significance that pop music or TV do. If only the stuff he was using to do it wasn't so fucking trite and godawful.

I think a lot of the people who like Kinkade would probably consider Warhol just a homo junkie scumbag. Not that the Kinkade audience is the only wider audience art could and should be pitched to, or that Warhol is (in the work you're referencing, at least) about as accessible as Kinkade is. The thing is, I think since Pop Art's heyday the art scene has become even more insular and less a mass medium than it was before. So in that sense, Pop Art failed and Kinkade seems to be the only one taking painting to the mainstream. I happen to give the mainstream a lot of credit in terms of what they can handle. I think the (previously) experimental techniques used in music video and film attest to that. Why not take GOOD art to the mainstream? When Andy Goldsworthy's show came here to Austin last spring, I dragged as many people as I could to it, and every one of them loved it.

This does a grave disservice to Rockwell!

Kinkade yaoi, now there's a whole new market. I like the Disneyland picture, I confess, partly because it's the best giggly kitsch ever, partly because it really does exhibit what "Disneyland" signifies to many Americans in the 20th/1st century, partly because it looks like an Alma-Tadema painting (whom I love for his giggly kitsch).

I admire Kinkade on a conceptual level, on the level where what he's doing becomes pure modern art. You may argue that this is accidental, that's he's not self-aware, but I don't see how it COULDN'T be self-aware. He's the bastard son of PT Barnum and Andy Warhol. And actually Warhol is the perfec comparison: an emphasis on flash over depth, the use of multiple prints that are only different enough to make them "unique," the creation of a place that identifies with his artistic vision (TS: Hiddenbrooke vs. the Factory), etc.

Well, I meant in the sense that he's just 'giving the suckers what they want' and not neccesarily painting what he'd like to do most. You know, that he wants most is their money, not to paint gloopy scenes of candle-lit cottages in snowy forests.

But on the subject of b) I doubt very much that his paintings will continue to be good investments. There are simply too many of them and they're too much alike. What we've got here is a speculative bubble based on fiendishly clever marketing.

I don't think that the Warhol comparison is totally fair. Warhol was smarter about his art in a different way. TK comes off as a business more than an artist. He uses gimmicks to increase value & sell more crap. Warhol seems to me more like a running commentary.

also, my parents buy the Kinkade.

and they buy books advertised on the radio.

It was while growing up in the small town of Placerville, California that these important values were nurtured. It was also during this time that Kinkade began to explore the world around him. He spent a summer on a sketching tour with a college friend, producing the best-selling instructional book, The Artist's Guide to Sketching. The success of the book landed the two young artists at Ralph Bakshi Studios to create background art for the animated feature film Fire and Ice. It was also during this time that Kinkade began to explore light and imaginative worlds with abandon.

HE WORKED FOR THE DUDE WHO MADE THE NOTORIOUS X-RATED ANIMATED FILM "FRITZ THE CAT"!

i dont like his work aesthetically or poltically but then i am not supposed to, art historians and art critcs have taken a vow against sentiment and against romance, and that vow kind of saddens me--i waonder what happens when we can again make solid arguements about the poltical and social implications of sentiment.

warhol is a non starter here, because warhol always positioned himself in the critical mainstream, his work is beloved by art critics because of its disavowal of sentiment, his pyschosexual ruthlessness is an anthema (sp) to kincaide.

kincaide isnt as interesting as he was 10 years ago, even his fans think that is work has become played out, and the 9/11 peice is the worst kind of patrotic kitsch, and i find him interesting conceptually (the lack of people, the "i come to the garden alone jesus shit, the sheer money, the extension of an artists aura, the mobile assitant and studio, the ahistorical nature of his work, the pyschogeographic sense of place, the cultivating of audience, etc)

i also find his constructions much closer to lets say poussin, then to rockwell (rockwell is harder, more political, more concerned with the everyday life of people).

poussin is v. interesting to compare him to b/c of the political simliarities to their time and place, and the back to the garden arcadian shit that they have so much in common.

kincaide is against most of what i stand for as a critic but most of what i stand for as a critic is so outside of the mainstream, and academics dont seem to fucking realise that, it behooves us to play his game for a while, in the same way it behooves us to listen to whatever is on the top of the pops.

currin is way for high end motherfuckers to say, oh i love craft and painting and the tradition and all of that, w/o engaging in it. the ugly, almost misogynst/homophobic paintings are really a way of constructing oppostion, they are self negating.

wow my kinkade/fantasy art connection is validated

ok, i'm gunna need help with this one

How emotions and behavior are affected by the geographic environment, apparently.

v cool. Done in 1969.

http://i.imgur.com/xav6H.png

Thomas Kinkade's real home, currently held hostage by girlfriend. If you like real estate drama...

awesome

http://io9.com/thomas-kinkades-cottage-paintings-upgraded-with-star-w-1456764815

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/1950h7cdqdj71jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/1950h7cdmq12yjpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhuwkBfGKwQ

Or, you can buy one "enhanced" by Kinkade himself for XX+$ and it will be signed with a DNA matrixed (i.e. blood or something) signature.
― Jaq (Jaq), Monday, September 12, 2005 7:58 PM (twelve years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

goth as fuk

Dollop episode about him is a good one, for you comedy podcast enjoyers https://castro.fm/episode/YZfxQt

Imagine being so rich you can commission "The Painter of Light" himself to render your mansion in a painting. pic.twitter.com/oHWStEBu0i

— Amiebea (@Amiebea) August 7, 2018

betsy de vos's summer house

makes it look like even more of a damn clown house

fake river!

Looks ripped from McMansion Hell

well . . . yes

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/8/6/17654434/betsy-devos-yacht-mcmansion-hell

Ahead of his time! Thomas Kinkade Once Painted a Roll of Toilet Paper.

https://robbreport.com/shelter/art-collectibles/thomas-kincade-toilet-paper-painting-print-covid-2912759/

Looks like he's finally getting a documentary, thank god

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/mar/25/thomas-kinkade-documentary

dude was mostly just a fucked-up grifter imo?
idk that i’d watch a doc about him but ymmvv

That actually sounds like a reason to watch

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/unseen-thomas-kinkade-paintings-documentary-2622338

Even a 2008 biopic featuring Peter O’Toole and Marcia Gay Harden couldn’t redeem him; it went straight to video.

the dollop podcast did an episode on him: i recommend listening to that to get caught up on this dude’s bullshit

that toilet paper painting is the best painting of his i have seen. it seems like something made by a high schooler trying to imitate giorgrio morandi.

i don't like his paintings but i find that kind of art inoffensive in jigsaw puzzles, casual video games, cozy mystery book covers, etc.

for a guy who drew a lot of houses he could have learned more about architecture and design. he didn't draw roofs good.

It's sad he died before AI became a thing. A lot of his paintings look like AI and I imagine he wouldn't have hesitated to use the medium to increase his productivity.

I was struck by this heartwarming tribute:
https://i.redd.it/95uycadj89wb1.jpg

Blows my mind that james gurney and kinkaid were buddies

i was watching a video by Solar Sands, who did that video on Thomas Kinkade, "the most hated artist you probably recognize"... they've got a follow-up on Jeff Koons, "the most hated 'sculptor' you probably recognize". it's mostly them personally trying to figure out how they feel about koons' work and koons himself. they talk a little bit about koons vs. kinkade and koons vs. paul mccarthy.

i don't really have any strong opinions on jeff koons one way or another, i guess. he reminds me a little bit of rick rubin, just without the beard.

Matt Zoller Seitz on the documentary:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/art-for-everybody-thomas-kinkade-documentary-film-review-2025

i don't really have any strong opinions on jeff koons one way or another

the stuff with Cicciolina is pretty cringe and has not aged well