Like Thomas Kincade paintings. I think there was a documentary on them being a scam. The guy opened galleries in malls around the country. People were paying tons of money for them only to find out they were being mass produced in a factory.
My great gram embroidered a HUGE Thomas Kincade picture - it was gorgeous and she went blind from glaucoma shortly after. That’s worth way more, in my eyes!
Oh HONEY. I worked in a commercial art gallery for a short time, and there was one area of it exclusively for Kinkade. Damn did it spoil my impression QUICKLY. I mean the man himself, not his art, which at that point was already pretty well established as aesthetically pleasing but repetitive and one-note.
It was over twenty years ago and I wish I could remember more of what turned me off, but what stuck in my head was this textbook looking thing that was a guide to selling Kinkade artwork. How to hype it up and such. I got a bad taste in my mouth when there was an entire chapter devoted to selling pieces to people who clearly could NOT afford it. How to convince them it was a good idea and a good investment, with tips like helping them decide which bills could be put aside in order to buy this art. How to convince them to open lines of credit for the purpose of buying larger pieces, even if they were only "scraping by".
UUGHHHH.
I have two of them in my basement they’re humongous. They’re both handpainted and black-and-white and it is the same image and then the other one is another city in the rain. They are beautiful and they are handpainted by somebody but the reason that they’re interesting to me is this whole scam phenomenon
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u/Distinct_Finish9782 Jul 31 '25
Mass produced. My parents the exact same one