Former gallery owner wins Kinkade payout
Palmyra – The former owners of Charlottesville’s Thomas Kinkade art gallery have won $860,000 from the “Painter of Light’s” company, having successfully argued that the Christian-themed firm committed fraud against its dealers. Palmyra resident Jeff Spinello and his ex-wife, Karen Hazlewood, are the first to defeat Kinkade’s company in arbitration. Including legal fees, they stand to receive up to $3.5 million, said the couple’s attorney, Norman Yatooma.
Yatooma also represents 21 former Kinkade dealers in seven states who are seeking similar or greater compensation. “We’re going to win those cases too,” he said.
The arbitration process was “long, nasty, brutal,” Spinello said. The couple was contractually bound to enter into arbitration rather than filing a lawsuit.
Kinkade attorney Dana Levitt, who has said he would try to void the ruling before it becomes final, did not return a message left at his office Monday. The artist, who specializes in picaresque scenes filled with light, has denied the allegations.
Spinello and his ex-wife argued that the company forced them to buy copies of paintings that ultimately did not sell well. And dealers could not offer discounts, Yatooma said.
In 2002, Kinkade’s company sent out mailers to previous customers about a sale at Tuesday Morning discount stores, the lawyer said. The prices were 90 percent lower than retail, and significantly less than what Hazlewood and Spinello, as dealers, paid for the images, Yatooma added.
A standard, numbered 18″ by 24″ lithograph of “Autumn on Mackinac Island,” labeled a new release on Kinkade’s Web site, sells there for $795 unframed. The same lithograph is available in smaller and larger sizes, with the largest framed artist’s proof selling for $1,840.
After paintings became available at a lower cost, gallery customers were angry and felt cheated by the couple and other dealers who are taking action against the company, Yatooma said.
“It’s important to me for people to know we weren’t part of it,” Spinello said. “We were duped.”
Spinello opened a Kinkade gallery on the Downtown Mall in 1999, after moving from the San Francisco area with his then-wife Hazlewood. They spent $122,000 to open two galleries in Virginia.
The couple was encouraged by the Kinkade company’s moral values, Spinello said.
“These were supposed to be such great Christian people,” Spinello said Monday. “I’m very disappointed. It certainly isn’t what I believed it was. It was all about money.”
In its 2-1 ruling Thursday, a California arbitration panel found that company officials created “a certain religious environment designed to instill a special relationship of trust” with the couple.
The panel will include interest, arbitration costs and attorney’s fees in the final award, which is expected to be determined in April.
The Kinkade stores in Fredericksburg and Charlottesville closed in 2003, and Spinello and Hazlewood have spent “hundreds of thousands” in legal costs since the arbitration case began three-and-a-half years ago.
Spinello said he wasn’t sure they would make it through the process, which included 29 days of arbitration stretched across seven months. Much of that time was spent flying back and forth between Virginia and San Francisco.
Despite the ordeal, Spinello is doing well now as a real estate agent, and he’s pleased with his win in arbitration.
“Score one for the little guy on this one,” he said.
Contact Kate Andrews at (434) 978-7261 or kandrews@
dailyprogress.com. The Los Angeles Times News Service contributed to this story.
