Park West Gallery Art Auctions Are Informative and Fun

"Lilac Cottage" by Thomas Kinkade
Park West Gallery Collection

Dear Park West Gallery,

"[The art auctioneer] and his staff were very friendly, intelligent and extremely knowledgeable in their work. They were always smiling and happy.

Every single person on staff made me & my fiancee's trip. Because of their hard work, creativity and energy, we bought paintings that we never thought we would. We will follow them for our next cruise.

I will always highly recommend them to anyone that is interested in buying an art piece. THEY MADE OUR TRIP GREAT!"

RICHIE & KELLY S.

Staten Island, New York
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"I just wanted to say I really enjoyed the auctions on our cruise, and all the great information I learned from [the art auctioneer] and his staff. We are looking forward to receiving our art we purchased."

SCOTT C.
Leesburg, Florida

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"We enjoy the print that we purchased during our cruise trip back Oct. 2010, on the Norwegian Jewel.

My mother & I have fond memories of the art shows, how helpful the art auctioneer was and his informative knowledge!

Now, when I visit some art galleries here on the north shore of Long Island, or the Hampton's, I'll have confidence in what I learned from Park West Gallery!

COLLEEN B.
Long Island, New York

From a Park West Gallery Kinkade Contest Winner

"Venice Canal" by Thomas Kinkade
Park West Gallery Collection

Dear Park West Gallery,

"Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart. This [Kinkade work of art] will be a wonderful surprise Valentine's gift for my wife.

We cruised the Mediterranean a few years ago (and bought some Park West Gallery art onboard at that time, I might add). We disembarked at Venice, where we spent a few extra days...it was an incredible experience, and this artwork will bring back memories of that wonderful trip.

Thank you again and please convey my appreciation along to Mr. Scaglione for sponsoring this contest.

Take care and Happy New Year!"

Steve M.

Oakley, California

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You could win your favorite Thomas Kinkade work of art in Park West Gallery's Vote for Your Favorite Kinkade Contest, just like Steve! Park West Gallery randomly selects one winner every Friday and you can vote once per day.

Visit http://www.parkwest-kinkade.com/ to enter.

Park West Gallery Offers the Best Customer Service

Dear Park West Gallery,

"Holiday Gathering" by Thomas Kinkade
Park West Gallery Collection

"I have taken many cruises, but have never purchased any artwork. On my last cruise, I decided to purchase a work of art for my sister for Christmas. At the time, they explained to me that there was a 12 week lead time, so it would be close, and that I may not receive it time for Christmas.

When I got home, I contacted your Customer Service department to see if they could 'push' the process, so that I would receive it in time. I spoke with Mary, and she assured me that she would do everything that she could to make it happen.

Well, I just want you to know that she did in fact do that, and actually went above and beyond the call of duty. She even called me the day that it was shipped to provide me with all of the tracking information. I actually received it a week before Christmas!

I just want you to know that Mary made my experience in dealing with Park West Gallery a very pleasant one. She truly is the best Customer Service Rep. that I have ever dealt with. Please provide kudos to Mary, and tell her that her efforts made one of your customers a very happy camper!

Thank you."

Michele K.

Syracuse, New York

On Winning Park West Gallery's Thomas Kinkade Contest

"Garden of Prayer" by Thomas Kinkade | Park West Gallery Collection

Dear Park West Gallery,

"Oh my gosh I am soooo excited! Thank you so much!

This piece of art means so much to me. I saw Thomas Kinkade on TV talking about this painting and that the person at the end of the path could represent God or a special person in your life.

My mom died suddenly last March at the age of 60. When I saw Mr. Kinkade talk about this I knew I wanted this piece of art. I voted almost every day and prayed I would win this. The person at the end of the path is my mom.

Thank you so much for this."

Tina A.

Eugene, Oregon 
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Thank you for sharing this touching personal story with us, Tina.

You could win your favorite Thomas Kinkade work of art in Park West Gallery's Vote for Your Favorite Kinkade Contest, just like Tina did! Park West Gallery randomly selects one winner every Friday and you can vote once per day.

Visit www.parkwest-kinkade.com to enter.

Vote to Win Your Favorite Kinkade!

Thomas Kinkade "End of a Perfect Day II" | Park West Gallery Collection

Dear Park West Gallery,

"What a surprise to receive an email that you are the Winner of Kinkade Artwork! Having been a customer of Park West Gallery since 2006, I love going to the events and you always have a great selection. You get to meet the artists and WOW what an honor.

It was nice to learn I was last week's winner of Thomas Kinkade - 'End of a Perfect Day II.' I am having this framed before it is shipped to me, so I can hang it when I receive it and enjoy the art.

Thank You Park West Gallery!"

Alan K.

Newark, New Jersey

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Congratulations Alan! You could win your favorite Thomas Kinkade artwork in Park West Gallery's Vote for Your Favorite Kinkade Contest, just like Alan did! Park West Gallery randomly selects one winner every Friday and you can vote once per day.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Win Kinkade Fine Art from Park West Gallery

"Venice Canal" by Thomas Kinkade
Park West Gallery Collection | BUY IT NOW

Dear Park West Gallery,

"While I am very excited about receiving 'Venice Canal' from the Kinkade contest, I am even more excited about being able to maintain our relationship with Park West Gallery.

My wife and I have been enthusiastic customers since 2005 and have won nearly as many pieces from the numerous auctions we have attended as those that we have purchased. However, the last few years have been financially tough and we have not been able to purchase any items.

Winning this contest brings back a little of the feeling of waiting for the pieces we purchased at auction while at sea."

Best regards,

Michael K.

Jacksonville, Florida

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Congratulations Michael! You could win your favorite Thomas Kinkade work of art in Park West Gallery's Vote for Your Favorite Kinkade Contest just like Michael did! Park West Gallery randomly selects one winner every Friday and you can vote once per day.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Win Kinkade Art from Park West Gallery

Thomas Kinkade "Carmel Mission"
Park West Gallery Collection | BUY IT NOW

Dear Park West Gallery,

"My husband and I have been Park West Gallery customers since our honeymoon in 2004. We wandered into an auction held on our cruise ship and were fascinated by the beautiful artwork and casual atmosphere. Since that time, we have been Park West Gallery fans and have even helped with several land auctions held in the Chicago area. The art in our home not only reflects our personality, but also showcases the high quality of artwork offered by Park West Gallery!

Thanks for the Thomas Kinkade print!!"

Sincerely,
Nicolie O.

Deltona, Florida

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Nicolie won her favorite Thomas Kinkade work of art in Park West Gallery's Vote for Your Favorite Kinkade Contest, and you could win too! Park West Gallery randomly selects one winner every Friday and you can vote once per day.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Kinkade Collectors Enjoy Cruise Art Auctions

Thomas Kinkade "Perfect Yellow Rose"
Park West Gallery Collection | Buy it now

Dear Park West Gallery:

"We have traveled with Carnival many times and have always enjoyed your auctions. We have purchased something almost every trip.

Our latest trip was on the 'Triumph' this past January. Your staff was very knowledgeable and helpful. They located a Thomas Kinkade that my husband had been wanting for a long time, which we purchased..."

Patricia M.

Livingston, Louisiana

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Thank you Patricia! It's always a pleasure to hear positive feedback from Park West cruise art auction collectors. If you're a Thomas Kinkade fan like Patricia's husband, be sure to vote in the Park West Gallery Thomas Kinkade contest—every week someone wins their favorite Kinkade work of art!

Thank You from a Park West Kinkade Winner!

Park West Gallery strives to create memorable experiences for those who join us for our Cruise Art Auctions as well as our land-based events. Of course we would like to help you add some wonderful artwork to your collections, but it is equally important to us that you walk away with a better understanding of art – and that you meet some great people too!
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Thank you Park West Gallery! I am very excited to be winning a work of art by Thomas Kinkade. He is my favorite artist. I have several of his pieces and can’t wait to add “Stillwater Bridge” to my collection.

Even though I have not been to your Michigan location, I have been to your auctions on several cruises and have totally enjoyed them. They are always a “must do” for both me and my husband.

Anytime I have had to contact the gallery, your staff has always been professional, knowledgeable, and very friendly. I look forward to a continued relationship.

Bernadette B.
Normal, Illinois

**For a chance to win a free Thomas Kinkade artwork of your own, visit Park West Gallery's Thomas Kinkade website and vote for your personal favorite. Winners will be drawn every Friday. This is a limited time offer so be sure to cast your vote soon!
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Related Links:

• Learn about Park West Gallery Artists



• View artwork from the Park West Collection

Happy Lefthanders Day: Top Ten Lefty Artists

AUGUST 13 is International Lefthanders Day!! The holiday was first observed on this day in 1976 as an effort to promote awareness of the inconveniences facing left-handers in a predominantly right-handed world. It is often speculated that lefties are right-brain dominant - the side of the brain linked to non-verbal thinking, artistic ability and creative skills.

So southpaws, celebrate your uniqueness along with the other 7-10% of the world’s left-handed population, including these TEN ARTISTS:

1) Albrecht Dürer



2) Raoul Dufy



3) M.C. Escher



4) Thomas Kinkade



5) Paul Klee



6) Michelangelo



7) LeRoy Neiman



8) Raphael



9) Rembrandt van Rijn



10) Leonardo da Vinci

[Source: About.com]
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Related Links:

• Learn more about the history of International Lefthanders Day


• Visit the Park West Gallery - Thomas Kinkade website


• Visit the Park West Gallery - Rembrandt website


• Discover more about your favorite artists at Park West Gallery

Making Sense of Thomas Kinkade

MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT - The Middlebury College Museum of Art presents Making Sense of Thomas Kinkade, an exhibition about the enormously successful but controversial contemporary landscape painter. The exhibit is currently on view through August 9, 2009.


It is easy to dismiss the work of Thomas Kinkade as kitsch and brush aside his popular success as only a marketing phenomenon, but to do so ignores his sincere zeal and the deep resonance his pictures have with huge numbers of people. While an appreciative audience of millions is not a sure sign of aesthetic quality or profundity, the wide appeal of Kinkade's art indicates that he has tapped into powerful personal and cultural longings. In other words, whether his work is good or not, it is telling.

The exhibit considers works by Kinkade along side paintings by Thomas Hill (1829-1908) and Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), two artists he greatly admires, as well as America's Most Wanted, a 1993 landscape print by Vitaly Komar (born 1934) and Alex Melamid (born 1945), that aims to distill into a single work the artistic preferences of a random sample of American adults.

Kinkade's images are consistent with popular preferences in art, but what's more his work is deliberately based on a relevant, respectable artistic heritage. He has reshaped and updated the tradition of Romantic landscape painting in particular and consistent ways to create his nostalgic, sentimental confections. Consistently running through the art that has most influenced Kinkade is a search for relief from the pressures and shortcomings of modern life.

Kinkade's own work may be popular because it is uplifting and painless, but it is not without content. His fantasy alternative existence consists of a tranquil domestic setting in a timeless but nonindustrial world free of social and psychological tensions. His images offer daydream relief from real, serious social and cultural stresses. This redress, however, occurs mostly in wistful imagination rather than in action, and thus Kinkade's pictures help viewers to adapt to a life out of balance with their ideals instead of working toward reconciling conflicting desires in practice.

Kinkade's trademarked tagline is "The Painter of Light" and indeed light is a crucial element of his images. His luminous skies are a standard Romantic convention for suggesting a divine presence permeating nature. Unique to Kinkade's work, as in his painting Hometown Morning, is a bright warm golden light blazing out improbably from every single window of his cozy dwellings.

"I paint glowing windows," notes Kinkade, "because glowing windows say home to me. Glowing windows say welcome. They say all is well. They say that someone's waiting, someone cares enough to turn a light on."

Some pictures show paradise already obtained, or nearly so, which encourages viewers to use them as sedatives, not spurs to soul searching. Kinkade, however, hopes for more. He consciously offers his works as a remedy for psychological and more broadly cultural malaise. Other pictures are invitations to wander, but in their picturesque sweetness and lack of incident and turmoil they assure a safe and happy trip. In this way, Kinkade pictures are like bourgeois vacations: an adventure of sorts, but not dangerous, complete with comforts, replicating one's daily existence at home without its cares and shortcomings but with more novelty and whimsy. [Source: http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/9aa/9aa67.htm]

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Related Links:

• For more information on Making Sense of Thomas Kinkade, visit museum.middlebury.edu



• Visit Park West Gallery's website dedicated to artist Thomas Kinkade and his artwork http://www.parkwest-kinkade.com/default.asp



• Recent news about "The Painter of Light" parkwestgallery.wordpress.com/category/artists-special-collections/thomas-kinkade/

What are your thoughts about the artwork of "The Painter of Light," Thomas Kinkade? Share your comments here!

Park West Gallery Launches New Artist Sites

Features Fine Art from Gockel, Kinkade, Le Kinff, Krasnyansky and Tarkay

United States of America (Press Release) April 3, 2009 -- Park West Gallery launches new web sites for acclaimed artists Alfred Gockel, Thomas Kinkade, Linda Le Kinff, Anatole Krasnyansky and Itzchak Tarkay. The sites feature information on the artists, virtual galleries of their work, videos of artist interviews and selections from the Park West Collection by each artist.

Through these new sites, Park West Gallery makes these collections viewable worldwide and continues its mission of bringing fine art to people everywhere.

“We have designed these sites as simple, straight-forward profiles of the artists and their works,” said Park West Gallery Director Morris Shapiro. “These new sites complement the Park West Gallery site, and extend the reach of each artist’s imagery worldwide.”

Leveraging the broad reach of the internet, Park West strives to make fine art available to more collectors and lovers of art everywhere. Park West’s other outreach initiatives include donation of artwork to universities, non-profit art auctions, fine art auctions aboard cruise ships and support of youth-based charitable causes.

Park West Gallery: Breaking ART NEWS, Hot Off the Press!!

Attention Park West Gallery Newsletter fans - the February issue is here!

> CLICK HERE TO READ ISSUE 6

> CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

This month's features include:

• Park West Gallery Spring Sale 2009,
• Park West Foundation Presents Lifetime Achievement Award,
• New Alfred "Alex" Gockel Website,
• Peter Max Gives CNN Exclusive Tour of New Exhibit,
• Barbara Wood Featured in Atlanta Style & Design Magazine,
• Thomas Kinkade Meets Indy Speedway,
• ...And More!

Park West Gallery Blog Poll #1: The Results

Thank you to all who participated in the first Park West Gallery unofficial blog poll!

Question: Which artist would you like to learn more about?

Here are the results:

Peter Max = 44%

Itzchak Tarkay = 19%

Thomas Kinkade = 0%

Alex Gockel = 25%

Salvador Dali = 12%

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Be sure to vote in this week's poll:

Question: If you could collect any famous painting which would you choose?

• Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa"
• Monet's "Water Lilies"
• Van Gogh's "Starry Night"
• Dali's "Persistance of Memory"
• Picasso's "Guernica"

Voting ends Friday, February 27 at 12pm EST

Merry Christmas from Park West Gallery

From the Park West Gallery family to yours,

Merry Christmas

A Christmas Welcome by Thomas Kinkade

Park West Gallery Newsletter - December Issue!

Attention Park West Gallery Newsletter fans - the December issue is here!

> CLICK HERE TO READ ISSUE 4

> CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

This month's features include:

• Scott Jacobs participates in covert mission to surprise actor Robert Patrick on the set of the CBS hit show - The Unit,
• New Thomas Kinkade website,
• CEO Albert Scaglione Receives Honorary Doctorate from CMU and Delivers Commencement Speech,
• Romero Britto to exhibit at the Louvre,
• Discover the Fine Art of Freestyle Cruising with Park West Gallery and Norwegian Cruise Line,
• 2008 Porthole Cruise Magazine Reader's Choice Awards

Park West Gallery Launches Updated Thomas Kinkade Website

Park West Gallery continues its 40 year tradition of connecting people with artists and fine art by inviting you to visit our new web site for artist Thomas Kinkade. Park West Gallery's updated Kinkade website features a biography of the artist, an online gallery of Kinkade's artwork and video of Kinkade at Park West's 40th Anniversary celebration. Learn about and be fascinated by "The Painter of Light" and his art.

Explore the new Thomas Kinkade website located at http://www.parkwest-kinkade.com/default.asp.

Park West Gallery Winter Sale Provides the Perfect Escape From "Mall Madness"!

Fine art and jewelry treasures await in a serene and elegant setting

Avoid the long lines and madness of the holiday shopping season. Instead, step into the serene and elegant setting of Park West Gallery and shop for unique gifts at the Winter Sale.

During the sale, more than 700 works will be on display from some of the world's greatest artists including Picasso, Chagall, Dali, Norman Rockwell, Peter Max, Thomas Kinkade, Yaacov Agam and Dominic Pangborn. Customers can find the perfect gift in Park West's outstanding collection, which features paintings, jewelry and even autographed sports memorabilia. In honor of Park West's 40th anniversary, some prices will be reduced by as much as 40 percent.

Park West Gallery is providing extended hours during the holidays from November 28 - December 23. Monday - Wednesday, 10am - 8pm; Thursday - Friday, 10am - 9pm; Saturday - Sunday, 11am - 6pm

View the Park West Gallery Winter Sale collection

Park West Gallery Launches New Artist Websites

Park West Gallery continues its 40 year tradition of connecting people with artists and fine art by inviting you to visit our new websites for artists Anatole Krasnyansky, Itzchak Tarkay and Linda Le Kinff. Park West Gallery's new artist websites feature updated artist biographies, online galleries of their artwork, YouTube videos and a forum for guests to share their thoughts about the artists and their art. Coming soon: Thomas Kinkade!

Discover the artists of Park West Gallery

With his distinctive, vibrant, and profoundly expressive works, Krasnyansky has distinguished himself as a true virtuoso in the world of contemporary art. His use of brilliant colors and surreal forms invites the viewer into his wonderful amalgams of traditional Europe and theatrical L.A.

Visit http://www.parkwest-krasnyansky.com/

Primarily known for his work in oils and watercolor, Tarkay is also a world renowned master graphic artist. His rich tapestry of form and color is achieved primarily through the use of the serigraph, where he lays many colors over one another, creating a unique texture and transparency.

Visit http://www.parkwest-tarkay.com/

There is poetry to the fantasy worlds pictured in the images of Linda Le Kinff. They are exotic and lush. They are richly colored and exude a rhythmic harmony. The viewers are subtly transported to this magical world and curiously finds themselves immersed in the pleasures, moods, and feelings of Le Kinff.

Visit http://www.parkwest-lekinff.com/

Park West Gallery Newsletter - November Issue!

Attention Park West Gallery Newsletter fans - the November issue is here!

> CLICK HERE TO READ ISSUE 3

> CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

This month's features include:

• Celebrity Cruises Features New Highlight the Artists Sailings,
• New Anatole Krasnyansky Website,
• Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage Released On DVD,
• Andrew Bone's South African Safari,
• Thrive Africa and Park West Foundation News,
• Newly Released Park West Artwork