Press Play with Madeleine Brand
An Art Fraud Based on Big-Eyed Children
The story goes something like this: an aspiring artist goes to Berlin right after World War II. He sees doe-eyed children rummaging through the trash for food. He’s so affected, he starts churning out paintings of these wide-eyed children. The paintings touch a nerve with the American public, and he becomes a millionaire from selling them.
By Madeleine Brand • • 1 min readThe story goes something like this: an aspiring artist goes to Berlin right after World War II. He sees doe-eyed children rummaging through the trash for food. He’s so affected, he starts churning out paintings of these wide-eyed children. The paintings touch a nerve with the American public, and he becomes a millionaire from selling them. Or -- not so fast. According to journalist Jon Ronson, Walter Keane perpetuated one of the biggest art frauds of the 20th century.
