Thomas Kinkade Gallery | Thomas Kinkade Bio

Thomas Kinkade was born in Sacramento, Ca. and raised in nearby Placerville, a small town in the former gold fields of the Sierra foothills. At the tender age of five, little Thomas Kinkade and his two siblings were left fatherless after their parent's divorce. They were impoverished and lived in the most run-down house on the street. His mother, Marianne, tried to make ends meet on her modest secretary's wage, but being a single working mom was a tough job. Often the three children came home to a dark empty house. Kinkade recalls, "There wasn't much stability." Despite the tough times, Thom's family encouraged his interest in art. Kinkade dreamt of the future and that someday, he would make his living as a painter and would have enough money to build a nice family home and not worry about paying the bills.

In Placerville, he was a boy with crayons, a kid who could draw. He was also the local newspaper delivery boy, an avid swimmer and loyal friend. As a child he constantly read biographies of artists, including those of painters and illustrators like Norman Rockwell, Maxwell Parrish and Howard Pyle. At age 11, he had his first "apprenticeship." Charles Bell, a local painter, instructed him in basic techniques. In high school, Kinkade came face to face with twentieth-century modernism in the person of Glenn Wessels, a former professor in the art department at the University of California. Wessels encouraged Kinkade both to tie his art more directly to emotion (rather than observation alone) and to experiment with highly personal forms of expression. He also influenced Kinkade's decision to attend the University of California at Berkley, where he enrolled in studio art and art history classes with a vision of himself as a counterculture nonconformist who would use his art to change and challenge convention. But Berkley in the 1970's gave Thom a culture shock of his own. He discovered he was indeed a nonconformist in his dislike of their system of art education. "My professors would say art should be all about you," Kinkade recalls. "That's a very self centered approach." After two years of frustration, Thom decided it was time to move on and he transferred to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. The fierce competition with other students pushed him to an intensive development of techniques for creating effects of light and mood. His work at the Art Center helped him to get hired to paint backgrounds-700 of them-for Disney's Hollywood animation studios on the animated film Fire and Ice. After one year he decided to move on.

In 1982, Thom and his high school sweetheart, Nanette, were married in a small church in Placerville. The church became the subject of his painting "Blossom Hill Church." The young couple had moved back to their hometown and decided to go into business on their own. They began making limited edition prints of Thom's work out of their garage. Their first piece was Dawson, a beautiful tribute to early Alaska. Nanette helped to take orders and then pack and ship the prints from their garage. Immediately, they were a success and Dawson was a complete sellout. Light post publishing was born. The corporate philosophy of Light post remains the creation of art that will communicate with people and whose message "uplifts people." With help from investors he opened 10 galleries across the country to display and sell his artwork. By early 1998 he had more than 100, and has since tripled. The little boy with big dreams had grown to become the World's Most Collected Artist.

Now, Kinkade is living his dream, and is still in awe of his success and what God is doing in his life. I am not a special man, he says, but God has blessed me.

Kinkade dreamt of the future and that someday, he would make his living as a painter.