home › Cooling system › Walter Keane is a talented manipulator and businessman. The film "Big Eyes" - a biographical drama story about the artist Margaret Keane (Margaret Keane) Margaret Keane is an artist, she created her own style

Walter Keane is a talented manipulator and businessman. The film "Big Eyes" - a biographical drama story about the artist Margaret Keane (Margaret Keane) Margaret Keane is an artist, she created her own style

Since 2012, Tim Burton (Hollywood) has been filming a film about the artist Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), who has been a Jehovah's Witness for over 40 years. In Awake! for July 8, 1975 (eng) was published by her detailed biography.

Below you can read it in Russian.

Film is history.

From January 15, 2015, the film " Big eyes". On English language The film is scheduled to premiere on December 25, 2014. Surely, the director added colors to the plot, but in general, this is the life story of Margaret Keane. So soon many people in Russia will watch the drama "Big Eyes"!

Here you can already watch the trailer in Russian:

main character film "Big Eyes" - the famous artist Margaret Keane, who was born in Tennessee in 1927.
Margaret attributes the inspiration for the art to a deep respect for the Bible and a close relationship with her grandmother. In the film, Margaret is a sincere, decent and modest woman who learns to stand up for herself.
In the 1950s, Margaret becomes a celebrity for her paintings of children with big eyes. In huge quantities, her works begin to be replicated, they were printed literally on every subject.
In the 1960s, the artist decided to sell her work under the name of Walter Keane, her second husband. Later, she sued her ex-husband, who refused to acknowledge this fact and tried in various ways to sue the right to her work.
Over time, Margaret meets Jehovah's Witnesses, which, according to her, greatly changes her life for the better. As she says, when she became a Jehovah's Witness, she finally found her happiness.

Biography of Margaret Keane

The following is her biography from Awake! (July 8, 1975, translation unofficial)

My life as a famous artist.

YOU may have seen a picture of a pensive child with unusually large and sad eyes. It may well have been what I drew. Unfortunately, I was unhappy with the way I painted children. I grew up in the southern United States in what is often referred to as the "Bible Belt." Perhaps it is this environment or my Methodist grandmother, but that instilled in me a deep respect for the Bible even though I knew very little about it. I grew up believing in God, but with a lot of unanswered questions. I was sickly child, lonely and very shy, but I was early discovered to have a talent for drawing.

Big eyes, why?

The inquisitive nature prompted me to ask questions about the meaning of life, why are we here, why is there pain, grief and death, if God is good?

Always "Why?" These questions, it seems to me, were later reflected in the eyes of the children in my paintings, which seem to be addressed to the whole world. The gaze was described as penetrating into the soul. They seemed to reflect the spiritual alienation of most people today, their longing for something outside of what this system offers.

My path to popularity in the art world has been rocky. There were two broken marriages and a lot of heartache along the way. controversy surrounding my privacy and the authorship of my paintings, led to litigation, front-page pictures and even articles in the international media.

For many years I allowed my second husband to be called the author of my paintings. But one day, unable to continue with the deceit, I left him and my home in California and moved to Hawaii.

After a period of depression when I wrote very little, I began to rebuild my life and later remarried. One turning point came in 1970 when a newspaper reporter televised a competition between me and my ex-husband, which took place in Union Square in San Francisco, to establish the authorship of paintings. I was all alone, accepting the challenge. Life magazine covered this event in an article that corrected a previous erroneous story that attributed the paintings to my ex-husband. My involvement in the deception lasted for twelve years and is something I will always regret. However, it taught me to appreciate the opportunity to be truthful and that neither fame, nor love, nor money, nor anything else is worth a bad conscience.

I still had questions about life and God and they led me to look for answers in strange and dangerous places. Looking for answers, I researched the occult, astrology, palmistry, and even handwriting analysis. My love for art has motivated me to explore many ancient cultures and their philosophies which have been reflected in their art. I read volumes on Eastern philosophy and even tried transcendental meditation. My spiritual hunger led me to study various religious beliefs people who came into my life.

On both sides of my family and among my friends, I have interacted with various Protestant religions other than the Methodists, including those of the Christian faith such as Mormons, Lutherans, and Unitarians. When I married my current husband, who is a Catholic, I seriously explored this religion.

I still did not find satisfactory answers, there were always contradictions and always something was missing. Other than that (without having the answers to the big questions of life), my life is finally starting to get better. I have achieved almost everything I have ever wanted. Most of my time was spent doing what I loved to do the most - painting children (mostly little girls) with big eyes. I had a wonderful husband and a wonderful marriage, a wonderful daughter and financial stability, and lived in my favorite place on earth, Hawaii. But from time to time I wondered why I was not completely satisfied, why I smoked and sometimes drank too much and why I was so tense. I didn't realize how selfish my life had become in my pursuit of personal happiness.

Jehovah's Witnesses came often, every few weeks, to my door, but I rarely took their literature or paid any attention to them. It never occurred to me that one day a knock on my door could drastically change my life. On that particular morning, two women, one Chinese and one Japanese, showed up at my doorstep. Sometime before they arrived, my daughter showed me an article about Sabbath, not Sunday, and the importance of keeping it. It made such an impression on both of us that we started attending the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I even stopped painting on Saturday, thinking it was a sin to do so. Thus, when I asked one of these women at my door what day was Sabbath, I was surprised that she answered Saturday. Then I asked, "Why don't you keep it?" It's ironic that I, a white man raised in the Bible Belt, should seek answers from two Easterners who were probably raised in a non-Christian environment. She opened an old Bible and read directly from the scriptures, explained why Christians are no longer required to observe the Sabbath or various other features of the Mosaic law, why the law was given on the Sabbath and on the future Day of Rest - 1,000 years.

Her knowledge of the Bible made such a deep impression on me that I wanted to study the Bible further myself. I happily accepted the book The Truth That Leads to eternal life”, which, she said, could explain the main teachings of the Bible. The following week, when the women returned, my daughter and I began to study the Bible regularly. It was one of the most important decisions in my life and led to dramatic changes in our lives. In this study of the Bible, my first and biggest obstacle was the Trinity, as I believed that Jesus was God, part of the Trinity, having this faith suddenly challenged, as if the ground had been knocked out from under my feet. It was intimidating. As my faith could not be sustained in the light of what I had read in the Bible, I suddenly felt a deeper loneliness than I had ever felt before.

I didn’t know who to pray to, and there were doubts even about whether there is a God at all. Gradually I became convinced from the Bible that Almighty God is Jehovah, the Father (not the Son), and as I learned, I began to rebuild my shattered faith, this time on the true foundation. But as my knowledge and faith began to grow, the pressures began to increase. My husband threatened to leave me and other close relatives were extremely upset. When I saw the requirements for true Christians, I looked for a way out because I didn't think I could ever testify to strangers or go door to door to talk to others about God.

My daughter, who was now studying in a nearby town, was advancing much faster. Her success has, in fact, become another hurdle for me. She believed so completely in what she was learning that she wanted to be a missionary. The plans of my only child in a faraway land scared me and I decided that I must protect her from these decisions. Thus, I began to look for a flaw. I felt that if I could find something that this organization taught that was not backed by the Bible, I could convince my daughter. With so much knowledge, I carefully looked for flaws. I ended up acquiring over ten different Bible translations, three correspondences, and many other Bible dictionaries and reference books to add to my library.

I received strange "help" from my husband, who often brought home Witness books and pamphlets. I studied them in detail, carefully weighing everything they said. But I never found fault. Instead, the fallacy of the doctrine of the Trinity, and the fact that the Witnesses know and report the name of the Father, true God, also their love for each other and their strict adherence to the scriptures convinced me that I had found the true religion. I was deeply impressed by the contrast between Jehovah's Witnesses and other religions on the subject of finances.

At one time my daughter and I were baptized along with forty others on August 5, 1972 in a beautiful blue pacific ocean, a day I will never forget. The daughter has now returned home so she can devote her full time to serving as a Witness here in Hawaii. My husband is still with us and is even amazed at the changes in both of us.

From sad eyes to happy eyes

Since dedicating my life to Jehovah, many changes have taken place in my life.

painting by Margaret Keane "Love changes the world."

One of the first was that I stopped smoking. I actually lost the desire and the need. It was a habit of twenty-two years, smoking an average of a pack or more a day. I tried desperately to quit the habit because I knew it was bad but found it impossible. As my faith grew, the scripture text in 2 Corinthians 7:1 proved to be a stronger stimulus. With Jehovah's help through prayer and my faith in his promise in Malachi 3:10, the habit was finally completely defeated. Amazingly, I didn't have any withdrawal symptoms or any discomfort!

Other changes were profoundly psychological transformations in my personality. From being a very shy, introverted and withdrawn person who was looking for and needing long hours of solitude to draw and relax from my tension, I have become much more sociable. Now, I spend many hours doing what I used to hate to do, talking to people, and now I love every minute of it!

Another change has been that I spend about one quarter of the time I used to spend painting, and yet, amazingly, I achieve almost the same amount of work. However, sales and comments indicate that the paintings are getting even better. Painting used to be almost my obsession. I couldn't help but draw, because this drawing was therapy, salvation and relaxation for me, my life completely revolved around this. I still enjoy it very much, but the addiction to it and dependence on it is gone.

It is not surprising that since my knowledge of Jehovah, the Source of all creativity, the quality of my paintings has improved, although the time to complete them has decreased.

Now most of my former painting time is spent serving God, studying the Bible, teaching others, and attending five Bible study meetings at the Kingdom Hall each week. In the past two and a half years, eighteen people have begun to study the Bible with me. Eight of these people are now actively studying, each is ready to be baptized, and one has been baptized. From among their families and friends, more than thirteen began studies with other Witnesses. It has been a great joy and privilege to have the privilege of helping others to know Jehovah.

It was not easy to give up my cherished loneliness, my own routine of life and a lot of my time for painting, and put in the first place, before anything else, the fulfillment of the commandment of Jehovah. But I was willing to try through prayer and trust to seek help from Jehovah God, and I saw that every step was supported and rewarded by Him. The proof of God's approval, help and blessing convinced me, not only spiritually, but also materially.

Looking back at my life, at my first painting done when I was about eleven years old, I see a big difference. In the past, the symbolic large, sad eyes I drew reflected the puzzling contradictions I saw in the world around me that raised so many questions in me. Now I have found in the Bible the reasons for the contradictions in life that once tormented me, as well as the answers to my questions. After I gained accurate knowledge of God and his purpose for humanity, I gained God's approval, peace of mind and the happiness that comes with it. This is reflected to a greater extent in my paintings, and many notice it. The sad, lost look of large eyes is now giving way to a happier look.

My husband even named one of my recent happy portraits - the eyed children "Eyes of the Witness"!

In this biography, you can find answers to some questions that we will not see or learn in the film.

Margaret Keane today

Margaret and her husband currently live in Northern California. Margaret continues to read the Bible every day, she is now 87 years old and now has a cameo role as an old woman sitting on a bench.

Amy Adams is studying with Margaret Keane at her studio in preparation for her role in Big Eyes.
Here is Margaret Keane at the Museum of Modern Art.

December 15, 2014 in New York.

" Stand up for your rights, be brave and don't be afraid "
Margaret Keane

" I hope the movie helps people never lie. Never! One tiny lie can turn into terrible, scary things.." says Keane in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

The purpose of this article is not to urge you to watch the film, since the film does not say a word that she is a Jehovah's Witness. The film tells the story of Margaret's life before she became a Witness. But perhaps with the help of this upcoming film, one of us can start a good conversation with a person about the truth.

A selection of the most remarkable paintings Margaret Keane

After the release of the film Big Eyes by the great Tim Burton, interest in the American artist of the second half of the 20th century, Margaret Keane, increased with renewed vigor.

Margaret Keane is an American artist who gained fame and recognition for her depiction of exaggerated large eyes and litigation regarding the authenticity of her work. Husband of Margaret Walter Keane for a long time sold paintings created by Margaret, signing them with his name. Being a good advertiser and a skilled businessman, Big Eyes paintings became so popular that the family managed to open their own gallery. At some point, Margaret got tired of the lies and the constant need to hide herself and her work. She is divorcing Walter and is filing a lawsuit claiming that all of Walter's paintings created over the course of ten years are her own. Considering the case in court, in order to determine the true author of Big Eyes, the judge suggested that everyone, within an hour, right there in the courtroom, draw one work. Walter refused to paint, citing a sore shoulder. Margaret drew the next Big Eyes in fifty-three minutes. The case was decided in favor of Margaret Keane, with four million dollars in damages.

Stylistically, the work of Margaret Keane can be divided into two stages. The first stage is the time when she lived with Walter and signed her works with his name. This stage is characterized by dark tones and sad faces. After Margaret's escape to Hawaii, joining the Witnesses of the Jehovah's Church and restoring her name, the style of Margaret's work also changes. Pictures become brighter, faces, albeit with Big eyes, become happy and peaceful.

Below you can read it in Russian.

Film is history.

From January 15, 2015, the film "Big Eyes" will appear in the Russian box office. In English, the premiere of the film is scheduled for December 25, 2014. Surely, the director added colors to the plot, but in general, this is the life story of Margaret Keane. So soon many people in Russia will watch the drama "Big Eyes"!

Here you can already watch the trailer in Russian:

The main character of the film "Big Eyes" is the famous artist Margaret Keane, who was born in Tennessee in 1927.
Margaret attributes the inspiration for the art to a deep respect for the Bible and a close relationship with her grandmother. In the film, Margaret is a sincere, decent and modest woman who learns to stand up for herself.
In the 1950s, Margaret becomes a celebrity for her paintings of children with big eyes. In huge quantities, her works begin to be replicated, they were printed literally on every subject.
In the 1960s, the artist decided to sell her work under the name of Walter Keane, her second husband. Later, she sued her ex-husband, who refused to acknowledge this fact and tried in various ways to sue the right to her work.
Over time, Margaret meets Jehovah's Witnesses, which, according to her, greatly changes her life for the better. As she says, when she became a Jehovah's Witness, she finally found her happiness.

Biography of Margaret Keane

The following is her biography from Awake! (July 8, 1975, translation unofficial)

My life as a famous artist.

YOU may have seen a picture of a pensive child with unusually large and sad eyes. It may well have been what I drew. Unfortunately, I was unhappy with the way I painted children. I grew up in the southern United States in what is often referred to as the "Bible Belt." Perhaps it was this environment or my Methodist grandmother, but it instilled in me a deep respect for the Bible, even though I knew very little about it. I grew up believing in God, but with a lot of unanswered questions. I was a sickly child, lonely and very shy, but I was early discovered to have a talent for drawing.

Big eyes, why?

The inquisitive nature prompted me to ask questions about the meaning of life, why are we here, why is there pain, grief and death, if God is good?

Always "Why?" These questions, it seems to me, were later reflected in the eyes of the children in my paintings, which seem to be addressed to the whole world. The gaze was described as penetrating into the soul. They seemed to reflect the spiritual alienation of most people today, their longing for something outside of what this system offers.

My path to popularity in the art world has been rocky. There were two broken marriages and a lot of heartache along the way. The controversy surrounding my privacy and the authorship of my paintings has led to lawsuits, front-page pictures and even articles in the international media.

For many years I allowed my second husband to be called the author of my paintings. But one day, unable to continue with the deceit, I left him and my home in California and moved to Hawaii.

After a period of depression when I wrote very little, I began to rebuild my life and later remarried. One turning point came in 1970 when a newspaper reporter televised a competition between me and my ex-husband, which took place in Union Square in San Francisco, to establish the authorship of paintings. I was all alone, accepting the challenge. Life magazine covered the event in an article that corrected a previous erroneous story that attributed the pictures to my ex-husband. My involvement in the deception lasted for twelve years and is something I will always regret. However, it taught me to appreciate the opportunity to be truthful and that neither fame, nor love, nor money, nor anything else is worth a bad conscience.

I still had questions about life and God and they led me to look for answers in strange and dangerous places. Looking for answers, I researched the occult, astrology, palmistry, and even handwriting analysis. My love for art has motivated me to explore many ancient cultures and their philosophies which have been reflected in their art. I read volumes on Eastern philosophy and even tried transcendental meditation. My spiritual hunger led me to study the various religious beliefs of the people who came into my life.

On both sides of my family and among my friends, I have interacted with various Protestant religions other than the Methodists, including those of the Christian faith such as Mormons, Lutherans, and Unitarians. When I married my current husband, who is a Catholic, I seriously explored this religion.

I still did not find satisfactory answers, there were always contradictions and always something was missing. Other than that (without having the answers to the big questions of life), my life is finally starting to get better. I have achieved almost everything I have ever wanted. Most of my time was spent doing what I loved to do the most - painting children (mostly little girls) with big eyes. I had a wonderful husband and a wonderful marriage, a wonderful daughter and financial stability, and lived in my favorite place on earth, Hawaii. But from time to time I wondered why I was not completely satisfied, why I smoked and sometimes drank too much and why I was so tense. I didn't realize how selfish my life had become in my pursuit of personal happiness.

Jehovah's Witnesses came often, every few weeks, to my door, but I rarely took their literature or paid any attention to them. It never occurred to me that one day a knock on my door could drastically change my life. On that particular morning, two women, one Chinese and one Japanese, showed up at my doorstep. Sometime before they arrived, my daughter showed me an article about Sabbath, not Sunday, and the importance of keeping it. It made such an impression on both of us that we started attending the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I even stopped painting on Saturday, thinking it was a sin to do so. Thus, when I asked one of these women at my door what day was Sabbath, I was surprised that she answered Saturday. Then I asked, "Why don't you keep it?" It's ironic that I, a white man raised in the Bible Belt, should seek answers from two Easterners who were probably raised in a non-Christian environment. She opened an old Bible and read directly from the scriptures, explained why Christians are no longer required to observe the Sabbath or various other features of the Mosaic law, why the law was given on the Sabbath and on the future Day of Rest - 1,000 years.

Her knowledge of the Bible made such a deep impression on me that I wanted to study the Bible further myself. I gladly accepted the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, which she said could explain the basic teachings of the Bible. The following week, when the women returned, my daughter and I began to study the Bible regularly. It was one of the most important decisions in my life and led to dramatic changes in our lives. In this study of the Bible, my first and biggest obstacle was the Trinity, as I believed that Jesus was God, part of the Trinity, having this faith suddenly challenged, as if the ground had been knocked out from under my feet. It was intimidating. As my faith could not be sustained in the light of what I had read in the Bible, I suddenly felt a deeper loneliness than I had ever felt before.

I didn’t know who to pray to, and there were doubts even about whether there is a God at all. Gradually I became convinced from the Bible that Almighty God is Jehovah, the Father (not the Son), and as I learned, I began to rebuild my shattered faith, this time on the true foundation. But as my knowledge and faith began to grow, the pressures began to increase. My husband threatened to leave me and other close relatives were extremely upset. When I saw the requirements for true Christians, I looked for a way out because I didn't think I could ever testify to strangers or go door to door to talk to others about God.

My daughter, who was now studying in a nearby town, was advancing much faster. Her success has, in fact, become another hurdle for me. She believed so completely in what she was learning that she wanted to be a missionary. The plans of my only child in a faraway land scared me and I decided that I must protect her from these decisions. Thus, I began to look for a flaw. I felt that if I could find something that this organization taught that was not backed by the Bible, I could convince my daughter. With so much knowledge, I carefully looked for flaws. I ended up acquiring over ten different Bible translations, three correspondences, and many other Bible dictionaries and reference books to add to my library.

I received strange "help" from my husband, who often brought home Witness books and pamphlets. I studied them in detail, carefully weighing everything they said. But I never found fault. Instead, the fallacy of the doctrine of the Trinity, and the fact that the Witnesses know and communicate the name of the Father, the true God, as well as their love for each other and their strict adherence to the scriptures, convinced me that I had found the true religion. I was deeply impressed by the contrast between Jehovah's Witnesses and other religions on the subject of finances.

At one time my daughter and I were baptized along with forty others on August 5, 1972 in the beautiful blue Pacific Ocean, a day I will never forget. The daughter has now returned home so she can devote her full time to serving as a Witness here in Hawaii. My husband is still with us and is even amazed at the changes in both of us.

From sad eyes to happy eyes

Since dedicating my life to Jehovah, many changes have taken place in my life.

painting by Margaret Keane "Love changes the world."

Looking back at my life, at my first painting done when I was about eleven years old, I see a big difference. In the past, the symbolic large, sad eyes I drew reflected the puzzling contradictions I saw in the world around me that raised so many questions in me. Now I have found in the Bible the reasons for the contradictions in life that once tormented me, as well as the answers to my questions. After I gained accurate knowledge of God and his purpose for humanity, I gained God's approval and the peace of mind and happiness that comes with it. This is reflected to a greater extent in my paintings, and many notice it. The sad, lost look of large eyes is now giving way to a happier look.

My husband even named one of my recent happy portraits - the eyed children "Eyes of the Witness"!

In this biography, you can find answers to some questions that we will not see or learn in the film.

Margaret Keane today

Margaret and her husband currently live in Northern California. Margaret continues to read the Bible every day, she is now 87 years old and now has a cameo role as an old woman sitting on a bench.

Amy Adams is studying with Margaret Keane at her studio in preparation for her role in Big Eyes.
Here is Margaret Keane at the Museum of Modern Art.

December 15, 2014 in New York.

" Stand up for your rights, be brave and don't be afraid "
Margaret Keane

" I hope the movie helps people never lie. Never! One tiny lie can turn into terrible, scary things.." says Keane in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

A selection of the most remarkable paintings Margaret Keane

Since 2012, Tim Burton (Hollywood) has been filming Big Eyes, a story about artist Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), who has been a Jehovah's Witness for over 40 years.
In the well-known magazine Awake! for July 8, 1975 (eng) her detailed biography was published. Just below you can read it in Russian.

Film "B" big eyes" 2014-story.

From January 15, 2015, the film "Big Eyes" by Tim Burton will appear in the Russian box office. In English, the premiere of the film is scheduled for December 25, 2014. Surely, the director added colors to the plot, but in general, this is the life story of Margaret Keane.

So, soon many people in Russia will watch the movie "Big Eyes"! On the Internet, you can watch not only the trailer for the movie "Big Eyes" by Margaret Keane. But already in the comments, readers shared links where you can watch the movie "Big Eyes" online video.

The main character of the movie Big Eyes is the famous artist Margaret Keane, who was born in Tennessee in 1927.

Margaret Keane, an artist, attributes inspiration to the art to a deep respect for the Bible and a close relationship with her grandmother. In the film, Margaret Keane is a sincere, decent and modest woman who learns to stand up for herself.

In the 1950s, Margaret becomes a celebrity for her paintings of children with big eyes. In huge quantities, her works begin to be replicated, they were printed literally on every subject.

In the 1960s, the artist decided to sell her work under the name of Walter Keane, her second husband. Who turned out to be insolent, a slanderer and a deceiver. When she turned to the priest to ask for advice, when she had to lie, the priest said that it would be right to listen to her husband in everything, since he is the head of the family. The heroine of the film had to live a lie and suffer for years. But after she met the Jehovah's Witnesses and they showed her the righteous standards of God in the Bible, for example, how God looks at lies, it became clear to her how she should act. According to Margatet Keane, the truth changes lives for the better. And the truth helped the heroine to do the right thing. She had confidence, courage and justice was restored. As the heroine herself said, when she became a Jehovah's Witness, she finally found her happiness. This is how Bible truth changes people's lives.

In the movie "Big Eyes" you can also hear the name of God as many as 3 times. See how Jehovah's Witnesses preach. how they are slandered and how the truth will triumph in spite of this.

Today, millions of people in the world can tell their own, no less interesting stories about how their lives have changed due to the knowledge gained from studying the Bible.
When you see happy, smiling people who offer you to get acquainted with the Bible, do not rush to refuse, maybe your life needs changes for the better.
And let the smiles of these people do not seem fake to you - these people (Jehovah's Witnesses) are really happy. They make people happy - don't believe it, then try to check it out. Read a little below amazing biography this artist and you will learn more interesting details about her and you will be able to understand this premiere of "Big Eyes" even more.

Biography of Margaret Keane

The following is a biography of Margaret Keane, in a famous magazine "Wake up!"(July 8, 1975, unofficial translation from English)

My life as a famous artist.

YOU may have seen a picture of a pensive child with unusually large and sad eyes. It may well have been what I drew. Unfortunately, I was unhappy with the way I painted children. I grew up in the southern United States in what is often referred to as the "Bible Belt." Perhaps it was this environment or my Methodist grandmother, but it instilled in me a deep respect for the Bible, even though I knew very little about it. I grew up believing in God, but with a lot of unanswered questions.
I was a sickly child, lonely and very shy, but I was early discovered to have a talent for drawing.

The secret of big eyes.
Big eyes, why?

The inquisitive nature prompted me to ask questions about the meaning of life, why are we here, why is there pain, grief and death, if God is just and good?

After a period of depression when I wrote very little, I began to rebuild my life and later remarried. One turning point came in 1970 when a newspaper reporter televised a competition between me and my ex-husband, which took place in Union Square in San Francisco, to establish the authorship of paintings. I was all alone, accepting the challenge. Life magazine covered the event in an article that corrected a previous erroneous story that attributed the pictures to my ex-husband. My involvement in the deception lasted for twelve years and is something I will always regret. However, it taught me to appreciate the opportunity to be truthful and that neither fame, nor love, nor money, nor anything else is worth a bad conscience.
I still had questions about life and God and they led me to look for answers in strange and dangerous places. Looking for answers, I researched the occult, astrology, palmistry, and even handwriting analysis. My love for art has motivated me to explore many ancient cultures and their philosophies which have been reflected in their art. I read volumes on Eastern philosophy and even tried transcendental meditation. My spiritual hunger led me to study the various religious beliefs of the people who came into my life.
On both sides of my family and among my friends, I have interacted with various Protestant religions other than the Methodists, including those of the Christian faith such as Mormons, Lutherans, and Unitarians. When I married my current husband, who is a Catholic, I seriously explored this religion.

I still did not find satisfactory answers, there were always contradictions and always something was missing. Other than that (without having the answers to the big questions of life), my life is finally starting to get better. I have achieved almost everything I have ever wanted. Most of my time was spent doing what I loved to do the most - painting children (mostly little girls) with big eyes. I had a wonderful husband and a wonderful marriage, a wonderful daughter and financial stability, and lived in my favorite place on earth, Hawaii. But from time to time I wondered why I was not completely satisfied, why I smoked and sometimes drank too much and why I was so tense. I didn't realize how selfish my life had become in my pursuit of personal happiness.

Jehovah's Witnesses came often, every few weeks, to my door, but I rarely took their literature or paid any attention to them. It never occurred to me that one day a knock on my door could drastically change my life. On that particular morning, two women, one Chinese and one Japanese, showed up at my doorstep. Sometime before they arrived, my daughter showed me an article about Sabbath, not Sunday, and the importance of keeping it. It made such an impression on both of us that we started attending the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I even stopped painting on Saturday, thinking it was a sin to do so. Thus, when I asked one of these women at my door what day was Sabbath, I was surprised that she answered Saturday. Then I asked, "Why don't you keep it?" It's ironic that I, a white man raised in the Bible Belt, should seek answers from two Easterners who were probably raised in a non-Christian environment. She opened an old Bible and read directly from the scriptures, explained why Christians are no longer required to keep the Sabbath or various other features of the Mosaic law, why the law was given on the Sabbath and on the future Sabbath of 1,000 years. Her knowledge of the Bible made such a deep impression on me that I wanted to study the Bible further myself. I gladly accepted the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, which she said could explain the basic teachings of the Bible. The following week, when the women returned, my daughter and I began to study the Bible regularly. It was one of the most important decisions in my life and led to dramatic changes in our lives. In this study of the Bible, my first and biggest obstacle was the Trinity, as I believed that Jesus was God, part of the Trinity, having this faith suddenly challenged, as if the ground had been knocked out from under my feet. It was intimidating. As my faith could not be sustained in the light of what I had read in the Bible, I suddenly felt a deeper loneliness than I had ever felt before. I didn’t know who to pray to, and there were doubts even about whether there is a God at all. Gradually I became convinced from the Bible that Almighty God is Jehovah, the Father (not the Son), and as I learned, I began to rebuild my shattered faith, this time on the true foundation. But as my knowledge and faith began to grow, the pressures began to increase. My husband threatened to leave me and other close relatives were extremely upset. When I saw the requirements for true Christians, I looked for a way out because I didn't think I could ever testify to strangers or go door to door to talk to others about God. My daughter, who was now studying in a nearby town, was advancing much faster. Her success has, in fact, become another hurdle for me. She believed so completely in what she was learning that she wanted to be a missionary. The plans of my only child in a faraway land scared me and I decided that I must protect her from these decisions. Thus, I began to look for a flaw. I felt that if I could find something that this organization taught that was not backed by the Bible, I could convince my daughter. With so much knowledge, I carefully looked for flaws. I ended up acquiring over ten different Bible translations, three correspondences, and many other Bible dictionaries and reference books to add to my library. I received strange "help" from my husband, who often brought home Witness books and pamphlets. I studied them in detail, carefully weighing everything they said. But I never found fault. Instead, the fallacy of the doctrine of the Trinity, and the fact that the Witnesses know and communicate the name of the Father, the true God, as well as their love for each other and their strict adherence to the scriptures, convinced me that I had found the true religion. I was deeply impressed by the contrast between Jehovah's Witnesses and other religions on the subject of finances. At one time my daughter and I were baptized along with forty others on August 5, 1972 in the beautiful blue Pacific Ocean, a day I will never forget. The daughter has now returned home so she can devote her full time to serving as a Witness here in Hawaii. My husband is still with us and is even amazed at the changes in both of us.

From sad eyes to happy eyes

Since dedicating my life to Jehovah, many changes have taken place in my life. Margaret Keane, paintings. One of the first was that I stopped smoking. I actually lost the desire and the need. It was a habit of twenty-two years, smoking an average of a pack or more a day. I tried desperately to quit the habit because I knew it was bad but found it impossible. As my faith grew, the scripture text in 2 Corinthians 7:1 proved to be a stronger stimulus. With Jehovah's help through prayer and my faith in his promise in Malachi 3:10, the habit was finally completely defeated. Amazingly, I didn't have any withdrawal symptoms or any discomfort! Other changes were profoundly psychological transformations in my personality. From being a very shy, introverted and withdrawn person who was looking for and needing long hours of solitude to draw and relax from my tension, I have become much more sociable. Now, I spend many hours doing what I used to hate to do, talking to people, and now I love every minute of it! Another change has been that I spend about one quarter of the time I used to spend painting, and yet, amazingly, I achieve almost the same amount of work. However, sales and comments indicate that the paintings are getting even better. Painting used to be almost my obsession. I couldn't help but draw, because this drawing was therapy, salvation and relaxation for me, my life completely revolved around this. I still enjoy it very much, but the addiction to it and dependence on it is gone.

Not surprisingly, since my knowledge of Jehovah, the Source of all creativity, the quality of my paintings has improved, although the time to complete them has decreased.

Now most of my former painting time is spent serving God, studying the Bible, teaching others, and attending five Bible study meetings at the Kingdom Hall each week. In the past two and a half years, eighteen people have begun to study the Bible with me. Eight of these people are now actively studying, each is ready to be baptized, and one has been baptized. From among their families and friends, more than thirteen began studies with other Witnesses. It has been a great joy and privilege to have the privilege of helping others to know Jehovah.

Looking back at my life, at my first painting done when I was about eleven years old, I see a big difference. In the past, the symbolic large, sad eyes I drew reflected the puzzling contradictions I saw in the world around me that raised so many questions in me. Now I have found in the Bible the reasons for the contradictions in life that once tormented me, as well as the answers to my questions. After I gained accurate knowledge of God and his purpose for humanity, I gained God's approval and the peace of mind and happiness that comes with it. This is reflected to a greater extent in my paintings, and many notice it. The sad, lost look of large eyes is now giving way to a happier look.

My husband even named one of my recent happy portraits of the eyed children Eyes of the Witness!

Here is an interesting and honest biography that was published in Awake! Did you like the biography? I really! In this biography, I found answers to some questions that we will not see and learn in the film. I also posted some photos of Margaret Keane's paintings, they also reveal what Margaret Keane believes in - beautiful new world where there will be harmony between people and animals!

Margaret and her husband currently live in Northern California. Margaret continues to read the Bible every day, she is now 87 years old and now has a cameo role as an old woman sitting on a bench.

With actress Amy Adams at a special screening of the film in Los Angeles, December 9, 2014, California. In the movie Big Eyes, Adams played the role of Keane. Pay attention to Margaret Keane's badge!

Here she is with actress Amy Adams at a special screening of the film in Los Angeles. Notice her JW.ORG pin. December 9, 2014 in Los Angeles, California.

See also some of her pictures "Big Eyes Video"

Interviews and quotes by Margaret Keane

What other details do you know about Margaret Keane?

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Today, the topic of our post will be a famous American artist, whose work has stirred up the world and forced millions to buy famous paintings. In 1960, her melancholy paintings of girls with big eyes were at the peak of popularity, and her ignoble husband reaped all the laurels, having appropriated the authorship of all her paintings. But this is a story with a happy ending, so read on, see the pictures "Big Eyes", the best of them on our website.

Margaret and Walter Keane met in 1955 at an exhibition. Shortly before that, she went through a painful divorce and was left all alone with a small child. Walter immediately struck Margaret with his charm and pretty soon they got married. The newly-made husband sincerely admired the paintings of his beloved, he was talented entrepreneur and even then he saw what success awaited him. Slowly, in front of the entrance to one of the clubs in San Francisco, Walter Keane, with the permission of his wife, began to sell her paintings. Margaret did not even guess what a dirty trick lies in this whole undertaking. But very soon the secret became clear, and Margaret Keane found out about her husband's scam. She gave Walter a good thrashing, but he was able to convince with quite reasonable arguments the profitability of such an enterprise, they say that customers are more willing to communicate directly with the artist himself, and that society will be reluctant to perceive a woman in the field of art, and the farce has already gone so far that exposure may threaten numerous lawsuits. Margaret gave up.

In 1960, pictures of girls with big eyes became incredibly popular:
millions of reproductions were sold daily in shops, original paintings were bought up at lightning speed. Poor Margaret worked 16 hours a day, producing new masterpieces, while Walter Keane himself reveled in fame, twisted numerous novels and simply burned through life.

In 1964, Walter Keane demanded that Margaret draw something phenomenal that could hang in some cult place and perpetuate his personality. The result was a huge canvas " Tomorrow forever", Where a bunch of kids with sad eyes stand in a column. But eminent art critics rated the masterpiece extremely negatively, Walter was furious.

On the tenth anniversary of her marriage, Margaret Keane plucked up courage and divorced her husband, promising to regularly supply him with new portions of paintings. She went to Hawaii, where she became one of Jehovah's Witnesses. And in 1970 our artist decided to fight for her rights and told her story to the press. Walter was beside himself and numerous insults and threats rained down on Margaret. In the same year, she married the writer Dan McGuire for the third time. During this period, her work experienced a new round, the paintings were no longer so melancholy, and a modest smile was traced on the faces of the children.

Margaret had to prove her authorship in court, with which she did an excellent job in 53 minutes. The judge demanded that the former spouses draw one picture with big eyes right in the hall. While Walter was looking for reasons to refuse such a check, Margaret calmly painted a picture. The court had no questions left, Walter had to pay 4 million to his ex-wife. By the way, Keene was diagnosed with a delusional disorder, so it is quite possible that he absolutely sincerely considered himself the author of the paintings.

Gradually, interest in the paintings began to fade, because the public is capricious, it constantly demands something new.

In 2015, based on the autobiography of Margaret Keane, the feature film Big Eyes directed by Tim Burton was released, where the roles of the spouses were played by Amy Adams and Christopher Waltz. Burton himself is a big fan of Margaret 's work , he even has several of her paintings in his collection , and his two famous muses Lisa Mary and Helena Bonham Carter posed for the artist .