Count the Mercury News’ Scott Herhold among those who weren’t big fans of Thomas Kinkade, the artist who died Friday at his home in Monte Sereno near Los Gatos at the age of 54. He calls Kinkade’s art “sappy and sentimental” although, like plenty of art critics who feel the same way, Herhold hands it to Kinkade for being a master marketer. Still, there wasn’t a good vibe about the last years of the Painter of Light’s life. An excerpt:
The last few years have punished Kinkade relentlessly. In 2010, there was a drunken driving arrest. His Morgan Hill company lapsed into bankruptcy. A lawsuit from two Virginia gallery owners resulted in an $860,000 judgment.
And there was that strange story of Kinkade urinating on a Winnie the Pooh figure at Disneyland (Kinkade apologized in general for his behavior).
The Los Angeles Times reported that he had not lived for more than a year with his wife, Nanette, whose initials, NK, were engraved on his reproductions. (A Kinkade clocktower on a popular print showed 5:02, the date of their wedding).
