For years, the world knew the paintings.
The large, fragile eyes. The quiet sadness. The unmistakable style.
What the world didn’t know was the name of the person who painted them.
Margaret Keane began creating her now-famous “big-eyed children” in the late 1950s. Her work stood out immediately. It carried emotional weight people couldn’t explain, and it quickly attracted attention in galleries across San Francisco. But as her paintings became more popular, her husband, Walter Keane, began presenting himself as their creator.