The Legacy of Thomas Kinkaid, Dead at 54, Lives On

His Impact on Art Economics and Visual Culture Defines a Modern Debate

When the painter Thomas Kinkaid, 54, unexpectedly died in his sleep last week at his home in Los Gatos, California, the devoted fans of his cheerful artworks—and the firm that sells his art prints, the Thomas Kinkade Co.—assured the world that his legacy would live on.

            Millions of copies of his paintings still adorn American living rooms and calendars, and the “Kinkaid” brand name still goes with Bible verses and curios. But the real core of his legacy will be the debate that he stirred in the American art world.

            Neither chic, bohemian, nor avant-garde, Kinkaid claimed to be “the painter of light,” literally and figuratively, as he rose to prominence in the 1980s. He was a somewhat guileless, born-again entrepreneur who made millions upon millions selling his products to fellow Christians, when most artists, curators, and museums were struggling to pay the rent.

            The critics said he had ruined art with his kitschy paintings of garish landscapes, which often went to extremes with bright colors. They said he compromised his integrity by franchising his art on mugs, collector plates, figurines, home furnishings, and even a planned housing community that mimicked his idyllic village scenes.

            One suspects, however, that both the deep loyalty of some Americans to Kinkaid, and the intense criticism he generated from the modernist art camp, was far more about money and culture than the way he handled a paintbrush.

            No one can seriously deny that Kinkaid was a dedicated, skilled artist. He had practiced since his un-privileged youth in rural northern California. He sketched and sketched, went to a Los Angeles art college, published a sketchbook, and painted for an animation studio. As even most painters will concede, he was quite a good plein air—that is, outdoor scenery—painter when he first started replicating his canvases as art prints on a shinny faux canvas material. The offended critics called his art “schlock,” and worse. But by any measure, Kinkaid was a quintessential craftsman who could have taken any artistic direction he chose.

            That was when Kinkaid put his finger in the wind—much as the Pop artists of the 1960s had done—and realized that, commercially, he could do best by selling decorative art to a vast population that liked something between a Disneyland fantasy and a Norman Rockwell small-town scene. Kinkaid had always admired Disney and Rockwell. So he began to produce the Kinkaid hybrid—cozy, bright, soft, and sentimental scenes of village bridges, candle-lit cottages, and pink clouds—without a bit of embarrassment.

            Having returned to the evangelical Christianity of his youth, Kinkaid realized that in the 1980s, a time of religious resurgence, ordinary churchgoers would be a big part of his audience. In effect, it was an early version of the Wal-Mart audience, millions of average-earning, traditional-values Americans. They had no truck with modern art, and they did not mind buying prints in frames to hang on their living room walls.

            For those who were evangelicals (a third of the U.S. population), Kinkaid was “one of us,” and this surely boosted his exploits in retail. In time, his Media Arts Group became the first company owned by an artist to trade on the New York Stock Exchange. In its boom years, the company had thousands of dealers and earned a few hundred million per year.

             Like evangelicals in real estate or Amway, a loyal network of people reached out and sold Kinkaid art prints and items—often in malls—and as business boomed, so did a few ethical and legal problems. The Kinkaid market became inflated. Many of the franchise dealers felt they were duped, by religious sincerity, into a pyramid scheme, and a few proved their case in court, winning million-dollar settlements.

            The rise and fall of Kinkaid, which included public disclosure after 2006 of his battle with alcohol, some lewd behavior, and a recent divorce, was celebrated gleefully by his critics. He was not only an artist who betrayed the true calling, they said, he was also a Christian hypocrite—the one remaining “minority” that can be flogged in public.

            Nevertheless, Kincaid had been an astounding success—the most collected artist in America, his works reputedly in 20 million homes. Not a little art world envy followed his exploits. As analysts have noted, his millions came from the masses, not from a few billionaire collectors, as is the case with the upscale avant-garde. With his financial independence, he could also offer a few zingers, saying that true enough, his “paintings of light” were quite different from the “fecal school” of modern art.

            Many high-tone critics continue the ritual of name calling at Kinkaidian art. They hope against hope to banish its influence and embarrassing success from American culture. That will never happen, however. As CBS News headlined this week: “Thomas Kinkade’s art work gets a boost in sales since his unexpected death.” Not a few art theorists have already announced that mass produced art, and even kitsch, have laid claim to the modern world, so why not enjoy it? Every group in society needs its own art. For the many it will be Kinkaid, for the few, Mapplethorp.

            Money and culture—these hot topics, and not overly-sweet landscapes, will keep the Kinkaid legacy alive. Kinkaid spoke to a social strata, and cultural viewpoint, unreachable to modern art, both visually and religiously. He also ended up with more money than he could responsibly handle. And that perhaps is the best argument for keeping alive our sentimental romance with the struggling, impoverished artist.

The “Art District” Movement Eyes Urban Renewal

A National Symposium Probes How Culture Can Improve City Life

BALTIMORE—Arts and urban renewal, seemingly strange bedfellows, were comparing notes in a big way in Baltimore this week.

            Under the umbrella of the annual Main Street Conference, held for three decades by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, more than 150 art activists and entrepreneurs from nine states gathered to share stories about the newest thing in urban renewal: the state designated “art district.”

            The first National Symposium on Arts/Cultural/Entertainment Districts was also a barometer of how the National Endowment for the Arts is thinking these days. Last year, the NEA issued its first “Our Town” grants to art projects aimed a civic renewal. Baltimore’s Station North Arts and Entertainment District not only won a grant, but was tapped to host the national symposium as well.

            The “art district” movement is just a decade old. Rhode Island was the first state to create such districts, which are parts of a city or town that receive an “art district” designation, tax breaks, and other financial incentives. Nationwide, art districts are typically found a bit over from downtown. Their key to success is having four “cultural assets.” These are culture-related businesses, practicing artists, non-profit groups, and cultural customers. According to studies, 80 percent of those culture customers come from elsewhere, making an art district a potential economic engine, especially in the usually poorer city sections where the art clusters often grow.

            In 2001, Maryland was the second state to designate art districts, of which there are now 19 (each with a ten-year limit to prove durability). The Station North Arts District, for example, has long had the natural cultural resources of an art college, a city university, train station hub, and symphony hall. But in reality, the district is mostly poor neighborhoods blighted after the 1968 riots. Such an art district has plenty of room for economic, environmental, and cultural development.

            Every once in a while the hands-on art district worker needs a bigger picture of the trend. At the symposium, that was provided by the leading art district researcher, Mark J. Stern of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice.

           Stern and his colleagues have been mapping “natural cultural districts” since the 1990s, mainly in Philadelphia, but now Baltimore and Seattle as well. “Natural cultural districts are initiated from the bottom,” Stern said in a keynote address. They emerge from a unique or historic local chemistry, typified by resident artists, mixed incomes, reasonable housing costs, ethnic diversity, and what Stern called a dominance of “non-family households.” Arts and entertainment, however, is what seems to glue these communities together and make them attractive to culture customers.

            Once these art hubs are discovered, cities and real estate developers are often eager to come in and try to “improve” the situation—either as a strictly profit-making proposition, or to alleviate the poverty and social stress of a poorer neighborhood. From a strictly social point of view, these art enclaves are worth preserving because their diversity breeds ethnic tolerance. Also, properties are better cared for. Crime can lessen. Children do better. Rents stay reasonable.

            For most art districts, Stern said, the diversity and stability is more important to the local economics than the “selling of tickets” to big art events. But when one of these vital art districts is suddenly “discovered,” somebody will inevitably start thinking about how to draw large crowds to sell loads of tickets (or drinks, or artworks, or boutique items). It is at that point that art district policy becomes complex and demands wisdom. Once an art district becomes a commercial success, the economic and racial diversity may decline. This is typically known as gentrification. The rents in such a “cool” artsy neighborhood rise. Only the prosperous can live there.

            For most of the art district advocates who came to Baltimore, the idea of a generous financial “intervention” is hard to turn down. What art district would not want better transportation to bring cultural customers, or the opening of an impressive new art or entertainment facility? But many of the local art workers would probably agree with Stern—an urban theoretician only—that the wisest way to develop an art district is gradually. “It’s a very complex urban ecology, and we need to be careful,” Stern said. “Successful cultural districts tend to destroy [ethnic and economic] diversity.”

            He sees two solutions. Both of them have benefits and down-sides. The first is to welcome the infusion of “cataclysmic money.” This can upgrade an art district overnight. It also tends to produce a “winner-take-all” art neighborhood. A few artists and establishments get rich. The majority get stuck. Stern prefers the second solution, which is the gradual building up of networks of support and business. This approach also loves to receive money from the city, philanthropists, and businesses, but only to “compensate” for economic rough spots, not as cash to accelerate a sudden boom.

            The data that Stern and his team are generating is perhaps the best in the field. Not only are local art district workers interested in the findings, but the NEA is designing grant programs—such as Our Town—around the data. Urban renewal remains a challenge. The arts are only one weapon. So Stern left his audience with more of a dilemma than a solution, but as laborers in the arts vineyard, they clearly understand that. “How do we build those districts without undermining their diversity?” he asked in closing.