'Big Eyes' Artist Margaret Keane Dies At Napa Home

NAPA, CA — Margaret Keane, the real-life artist behind Tim Burton's movie "Big Eyes," died Sunday at her Napa home, according to reports.

She was 94 years old.

Keane, who was born in 1927 in Nashville, Tennessee, had a love for painting and drawing at an early age and recalled drawing eyes in her school books. She enrolled in her first art class when she was 10 years old and painted her first oil painting as a gift for her grandmother.

When she was 18, she enrolled at Traphagen School of Fashion, an art and design school in New York City. It was there she developed her signature style: melancholic renderings of cartoonish women, children and animals, often referred to as big-eyed "waifs."

In 2014 when the movie "Big Eyes" hit the big screen, she was still painting almost every day.

"I first started doing portraits of children when my own daughter was a baby," Keane said at the time in an interview with KQED. "I couldn't afford to have a photograph so I thought, 'Well I've gotta capture it.' So I tried to do it and her eyes — children's eyes — are bigger but I made them even bigger. I think because I was focusing on the eyes; eyes always interested me because I guess they show the inner person, you know."

She spoke about when her husband Walter Keane, started taking credit for all her paintings, which is the story told in the movie.

"Well, I knew it would be easier for him to sell a painting if people knew he was the artist," she said in the interview. "But I did put up a fight. For about a year, I guess we were really fighting. For a while, I signed MW Keane on the paintings. Then he talked me out of that. I finally gave in. I was too weak."

As her work continued to gain popularity, she was painting 16 hours a day.

"Practically nonstop," she said. "And then when I had to live the lie, that was terrible. And that is what the movie is about."

Although the film brought back some difficult emotions, she said it was well done and accurately portrayed. Burton bought paintings from Keane before he ever made the movie, she said, so she knew he "would do a wonderful job."

Keane's work became popular in 1959 in San Francisco's North Beach. In the early '60s, her art gained wider favor and started a "big-eyed movement" — influencing a large crop of big-eyed artists such as Lee, Gig, Maio, Ozz Franca, Igor Pantuhoff, and Eve, according to Keane-eyes.com, the website for her San Francisco art gallery.

In 1964, Keane prints alone — not original works — grossed $2 million. In 1965, a Life magazine article, “The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes,” likened it to Howard Johnson’s ubiquitous restaurants, The New York Times reported. Her works were well-received internationally and hung in a Moscow theater and in museums in Spain, Belgium, Japan and Mexico, as well in many private collections, according to The Times article.

She created a legacy of "big eyes" that influenced many toy designs and cartoons, such as Little Miss No Name Dolls, Blythe dolls and the cartoon "Powerpuff Girls." And more recently, numerous illustrators, New Contemporary and Pop Surrealism artists such as Yoshitomo Nara, Mark Ryden, and Tim Burton.

One of her favorite artists, Amedeo Modigliani, and his art, had a major influence on the way she painted women since 1959. Throughout the years, Keane was also influenced by Van Gogh, Henri Rousseau, Leonardo da Vinci, Gustav Klimt, Edgar Degas, Picasso, Sandro Botticelli and Paul Gauguin.

"Along with these great and awe-inspiring artists, Keane's own creative genius of Big Eyes and women has continued to influence and inspire countless artists today," her website states.

Keane is survived by her daughter, Jane Swigert; five stepchildren from her marriage to Dan McGuire, Danny, Maureen, Brian and Colleen McGuire and Mary Ann Russo; and eight step-grandchildren.

After living in Hawaii since 1965, Keane returned to California in 1992 and established a gallery in San Francisco. She spent the last several years living in Napa with her daughter and enjoying a resurgence of interest in her work following the 2014 movie.

"We will miss her love, creative ingenius and passion to continue to create new works up until her passing," her gallery wrote in an Instagram post.