William Thomas Kinkade was born on January 19, 1958, in Sacramento County, California.[6] He grew up in the town of Placerville, graduated from El Dorado High School in 1976, and attended University of California, Berkeley, and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.[1] He married Nanette Willey in 1982, and the couple had four daughters: Merritt (b. 1988), Chandler (b. 1991), Winsor (b. 1995) and Everett (b. 1997), all named for famous artists.[1] He and his wife had been separated for over a year before his death in 2012.[7]

Some of the people who mentored and taught Kinkade prior to college were Charles Bell and Glenn Wessels.[1] Wessels encouraged Kinkade to go to the University of California at Berkeley. Kinkade's relationship with Wessels is the subject of a semi-autobiographical film released in 2008, Christmas Cottage. After two years of general education at Berkeley, Kinkade transferred to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Career[edit]

In June 1980, Kinkade spent a summer traveling across the United States with his college friend James Gurney. The two of them finished their journey in New York and secured a contract with Guptill Publications to produce a sketching handbook. Two years later they produced The Artist's Guide to Sketching,[1] which was one of Guptill Publications' best-sellers that year.

The success of the book led them both to Ralph Bakshi Studios where they created background art for the 1983 animated feature film Fire and Ice. While working on the film, Kinkade began to explore the depiction of light and of imagined worlds.

After the film, Kinkade earned his living as a painter, selling his originals in galleries throughout California.

Artistic themes and style