Loren Yagoda... Artist
Margaret Keane
Girl on the Beach
1950's
Dimensions:
17 ½ x 23 ¼ for the painting
29 x 34 ½ with the frame
I was a young child when a telegram arrived for my mother. “You are now the proud owner of Keane’s Girl on the Beach.” It was my parent’s anniversary and this was a gift to her from my father. They had seen the painting in a gallery and both fell in love with it. My mother was the happiest I’d ever seen her. We all celebrated the new addition to our family.
She was hung in our home and worshipped like the Mona Lisa.
My parents were art collectors, but nothing ever stood out like this piece. She was given an honored location in each of our homes and became the subject of earth shattering dinner conversations.
I inherited her when my mother passed and I have honored her ever since. It has been the center of my family’s home for decades and represents “home” to me.
Girl on the Beach is different from the rest of Margaret Keane’s paintings. It is likely from before she met Walter and started to mass produce in a different style with brighter colors. It is a unique piece from before she became rushed, repetitive and some would say less soulful.
Girl on the Beach has sophisticated blues and greys with complex shading and blending which exhibit her earlier, more time-staking artistic style. The painting is dramatic and serious. The pain is real, the colors somber.
Margaret Keane painted from her soul, like women often do. Perhaps she painted more in this style, but this is the only one I have seen in my years of searching. I owe so much to Margaret Keane. She has inspired me to become a soulful, female artist devoted to my life’s work.
Thank you,