For a few years in the 1960s, Margaret Keane's paintings of mournful saucer-eyed figures — tearful waifs, haunted-looking adults, gloomy cats and dogs — seemed to be everywhere. Easily recognizable ...

was the most famous artist you didn't know. Her paintings of sad, big-eyed children were all the rage. But no one knew she created them, because—unbeknownst to her—Margaret's husband at the time, the ...

Artist Walter Keane (left) is shown with Dr. Soichi Tominga, director of the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, with two Keane paintings acquired by the museum in 1964. At left is "Peace on ...

Margaret Keane, who went to court to prove that her popular paintings of children with large, sad eyes were indeed hers and not her husband’s, a tale that was told in the Tim Burton film Big Eyes, has ...