Few could touch the American artist Thomas Kinkaid whose the-light’s-on-in-the-cottage paintings sold as fast as they were shelved in the outlets he established in malls right across the United States. Kinkaid actually trademarked the phrase “Painter of light” best associated with J W Turner and reckoned that one in 20 American homes had a work of his on its walls. Sadly art, as it can, extracted a toll.
After a very public bankruptcy and a struggle with alcohol, Kincaid died this month. On a brighter note though, Christmas is nearly on us again as this ad for Kinkaid’s Christmas Tree in last Saturday’s Dominion Post magazine demonstrates.
If having Santa and his reindeer flying round and round the top of a baroque Christmas tree is your idea of a table centrepiece, you need to get to the Bradford Exchange with your three hundred bucks. And you need to do it now. There are only 238 days to Christmas.
