Thomas Kinkade

Lighthouses, bridges and cottages rendered in blurred, glowing light have spread across American everyday life, showing up on Bibles, bedding and credit cards. The painter sold his work through shopping-mall galleries, television shopping channels, the internet and Christian bookstores, and is often described as one of the most collected artists in the country.

Many critics in the art world and the academy have dismissed him as a passing trend or a product of clever marketing. This collection takes a different view, placing his paintings and influence within the longer history of American visual culture. Its essays compare his work with nineteenth-century Currier and Ives prints and Andres Serrano's Piss Christ, and examine the collectibles market, the fine-art market, the Thomas Kinkade Museum and Cultural Center, and The Village at Hiddenbrooke, a California housing development inspired by his paintings.

The conceptual artist Jeffrey Vallance, who curated the first major museum exhibition of this painter's art and collectibles, recounts how he organized that show. The contributors draw on art history, visual culture and cultural studies to assess his significance for both art and its audiences, and they raise questions about beauty, class, kitsch, religion and taste in contemporary art.