Brush with law
Painting cute country cottages so kitschy they make art critics cringe doesn’t usually bring you a knock on the door from the FBI. But the feds are investigating America’s best-selling artist, wholesome Christian painter Thomas Kinkade, whose mass-produced work is sold in stores in malls across the nation. The FBI has been talking to dealers who say Kinkade played on their Christian faith to rope them into investing in franchise stores only to bankrupt them with company policies that severely restricted how they could sell the prints and ordered them to keep opening more stores. A judge in California awarded $860,000 this year to two of the dealers, and dozens more have since come forward to complain. But that’s only part of the growing shadow looming over the phenomenally popular “Painter of Light,” whose work hangs on an estimated 10 million suburban living room walls and who is building an empire to rival Martha Stewart’s. A Michigan lawyer plans to file two class-action lawsuits this month on behalf of collectors who bought Kinkade’s dreamy, inspirational landscapes and shareholders in his company. Lawyer Norman Yatooma is also filing a civil racketeering case alleging Kinkade’s company destroyed documents and bought off witnesses. “I’m a person of faith myself, and I’m really disturbed by Kinkade’s use of Jesus to perpetrate a scam,” said Yatooma, who said he’s been contacted by the FBI. “There are a lot of unhappy people out there who invested several hundred thousand dollars under the inducement of sharing God’s light, while at the same time making money.” Yatooma charges that Kinkade undercut the value of his artwork by hawking it on QVC, where he pulled in $2 million an hour, by emblazoning his images on everything from mouse pads to La-Z-Boy recliners and by dumping canvases at discount stores. He also alleges Kinkade ran down the share price of his company from $30 to $4 so he could buy it back cheaply and take it private in 2004. Kinkade spokesman Jim Bryant said in a statement that the California company was unaware of any FBI investigation and the allegations are unfounded. John Vassallo, who owns the five New York-area Thomas Kinkade Signature Galleries, scoffed at the attacks on the artist. “You can’t have any bad in you if you paint like this,” Vassallo said. “I’m fortunate and honored that I’m able to own a gallery that spreads such a positive message through Thom’s artwork.” Vassallo dismissed the disgruntled franchise owners as lousy businessmen blaming the artist for their own failures. “Selling his artwork is not hard. Stocking it is,” said Vassallo, who has stores in Staten Island, White Plains, West Nyack and Paramus, N.J. He said his average customer buys five paintings and several have 50 or more. “People can relate to the images that he paints,” Vassallo said. “They don’t need to hire someone to explain to them what it means. They can receive that message that he’s trying to send: faith, family, friendship, hope.” Critics don’t consider Kinkade much of an artist – no museum shows his work – but he is a marketing genius with legions of fans. “The critics may not endorse me, but I own the hearts of the people,” he told Christianity Today. He trademarked the sobriquet “Painter of Light,” a title normally applied to the British master J.M.W. Turner, and has built a multimillion-dollar empire on his pastel gardens, quaint villages and twinkling lighthouses. Paintings are reproduced on a California assembly line in an array of prints selling from a few hundred bucks to tens of thousands for various “limited editions” retouched by his staff. The most expensive are retouched by Kinkade himself and signed with ink containing DNA extracted from his blood and hair.
