Religion News Blog is a non-profit service providing academics, religion professionals and other researchers with religion & cult news

Religion news articles about religious cults, sects, world religions, and related issues

Navigation:

Search

Thomas Kinkade accused of bad business dealings, behavior

Los Angeles Times, via DallasNews.com, USA
Mar. 17, 2006
Kim Christensen
www.dallasnews.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Friday March 17, 2006

Kinkade denies he harmed galleries, calls claims ‘ridiculous’

Thomas Kinkade is famous for his luminous landscapes and street scenes, those dreamy, deliberately inspirational images he says have brought “God’s light” into people’s lives, even as they have made him one of America’s most collected artists. A Christian who calls himself the “Painter of Light,” Mr. Kinkade says God has guided his brush – and his life – for the last 20 years.

But some former Kinkade employees, gallery operators and others contend that the Painter of Light has a decidedly dark side. In litigation and interviews with the Los Angeles Times, some former gallery owners depict Mr. Kinkade, 48, as a ruthless businessman who drove them to financial ruin at the same time he was fattening his business associates’ bank accounts and feathering his nest with tens of millions of dollars.

Mr. Kinkade – whose solely owned Thomas Kinkade Co. is based in Morgan Hill, Calif. – denies these allegations. Last month, however, a three-member panel of the American Arbitration Association ordered his company to pay $860,000 for defrauding the former owners of two failed Virginia galleries. That decision marks the first major legal setback for Mr. Kinkade, who won three previous arbitration claims. Five more are pending. Former gallery owners, ex-employees and others also say Mr. Kinkade’s personal behavior belies his wholesome image.

Mr. Kinkade declined the Times’ request for an interview but responded to written questions. He called the accounts of crude personal behavior “ridiculous” and “crazy allegations.”

As he built his brand, Mr. Kinkade came to embody its underlying themes of faith, family and life’s blessings. He speaks lovingly of his family – illustrating a lighter side of the man his supporters say is genial and genuine, a “regular guy” with small-town roots. He also has raised millions for charities.

But a different portrait of the artist emerges from legal action brought by former gallery owners against Mr. Kinkade, Media Arts Group Inc. – the public company he has since taken private – and some who helped build it into a $250 million-a-year retail juggernaut before its sales flagged and its stock tanked. Ex-dealers allege that the artist manipulated them into investing in Thomas Kinkade Signature Galleries, independently owned stores licensed to deal exclusively in his work. They also contend he sought to devalue the company before buying it back two years ago. Company executives and lawyers say that a steep drop in the number of Signature galleries, which have dwindled to fewer than half of the 350 that once existed, is a result of a broad decline in the limited-edition art business.

But such arguments failed to persuade the arbitration panel, which on Feb. 23 ruled in favor of the former Virginia gallery owners, Karen Hazlewood and Jeffrey Spinello. Though the panel did not single out the artist in its fraud finding, it wrote that Mr. Kinkade and other Media Arts Group executives had created “a certain religious environment designed to instill a special relationship of trust” with the couple, who have since divorced. Although Mr. Kinkade has said he does not market specifically to Christians, his limited-edition canvas prints bear the familiar Christian fish symbol and are inscribed with a biblical reference, “John 3:16.”

Former dealer Jim Cote also has filed an arbitration claim, alleging among other things that he was a victim of Media Arts Group’s pressure to saturate the market. Mr. Cote, of Birmingham, Mich., opened his first Signature gallery in 1996 and eventually had three stores, all of which failed. He shut his last store in December and has filed for bankruptcy protection.

As Ms. Hazlewood, Mr. Spinello, Mr. Cote and other Signature gallery owners were faltering, the company’s stock plummeted from a high of nearly $25 a share to less than $3. Mr. Kinkade, who co-founded the company as Lightpost Publishing in 1989 and took it public in 1994, bought it back in 2004 for $4 a share. But even as the company ran aground, Mr. Kinkade and others in top positions prospered, according to testimony. From 1997 through May 2005, Mr. Kinkade earned $53 million for his work, the company’s assistant controller testified.

The arbitration panel found that the company and one of its executives, Richard F. Barnett, who ran a training program for prospective gallery owners known as Thomas Kinkade University, never warned potential investors of the inherent risks.

Just as it has revealed the inner workings of Mr. Kinkade’s business, the dealer litigation also has delved into his personal conduct. In testimony and interviews with the Times, former employees said they often went with Mr. Kinkade to strip clubs and bars.

In an interview, Terry Sheppard, a former vice president for Mr. Kinkade’s company, recounted a trip to Orange County in the late 1990s for the artist’s appearance on the “Hour of Power” television show. On the eve of the broadcast, Mr. Sheppard said, he and Mr. Kinkade returned to the Disneyland Hotel after a night of heavy drinking. As they walked to their rooms, according to Mr. Sheppard and another person who was there, Mr. Kinkade veered toward a nearby figure of a Disney character and decided to “mark his territory.”

In a deposition, the artist alluded to his practice of urinating outdoors, saying he “grew up in the country” where it was common.

Mr. Kinkade’s memory was fuzzy when he was asked during the arbitration proceedings about a signing party in Indiana in August 2002. By various accounts, most of the partyers overindulged, including Mr. Kinkade and Mr. Cote. At one point, according to testimony and interviews with Mr. Cote and three others who were there, Mr. Kinkade polled the men in the room about their preferences in women’s anatomies.

During that discussion, according to arbitration records, Mr. Kinkade groped one of the women at the party. Others at the party said they also saw the alleged groping.

Mr. Kinkade testified in a deposition that excessive drinking and “some normal rowdy talk” had taken place, but he denied touching the woman. “But you’ve got to remember,” he said, “I’m the idol to these women who are there.” In the recent arbitration case, he also testified that he had never claimed to be perfect.