Thomas Kinkade's Wife, Girlfriend Battle Over his Estate

Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light™, spent his last two years legally separated from his wife of nearly three decades and struggling with alcoholism.

Now, the $60-million-plus estate of America's most collected artist — master of the prayer garden and the glowing cottage — is at the center of a nasty legal battle complete with two wills, two women and two very different images of the painter's last wishes.

Nanette Kinkade, his estranged wife, and Amy Pinto, who says she and Kinkade were planning a Fiji wedding before his death at age 54, are locked in a dispute over the disposition of his fortune — as well as his remains.

Photos: Thomas Kinkade: 'The Painter of Light'

The critically panned painter, whose artworks are said to hang in one of every 20 American homes — along with the White House and the Billy Graham Library — died on a Friday morning three months ago after ingesting too much alcohol and Valium.

Since then, Pinto has come forward with two handwritten wills that bequeath her $10 million and Kinkade's compound — his house and his studio, called Ivy Gate — in the woodsy Silicon Valley suburb of Monte Sereno. They also charge her with creating a Kinkade museum.

Nanette Kinkade has accused her estranged husband's live-in girlfriend of everything from gold digging to possible industrial espionage. The two sides will face off in probate court on Monday, where a judge is scheduled to consider who should be chosen to administer Kinkade's estate.

Nanette Kinkade and her attorneys have referred all requests for comment to a New York public relations firm. Pinto wants desperately to talk, said attorney Douglas Dal Cielo, "but at the current time she's muzzled" by a confidentiality agreement, which, like everything else in the Kinkade saga, is the focus of a legal battle.

Don't expect to find any clarity on the official Kinkade website, which sports a circa 1980s photo of the young artist — "a simple boy with a brush from the small country town of Placerville" — arm around his Farrah-haired wife, his childhood sweetheart. There is a gushing description of the "symbols of his love" painted into pastoral scenes and NASCAR races.

"Numerous paintings contain hidden 'N's' representing Thom's lovely wife Nanette," the site says, "and many other paintings include the numbers 5282 as tribute to their wedding date May 2, 1982."

Court documents — and there are plenty of those — paint a far more complicated picture of Kinkade's life.

After 28 years of marriage, Nanette Kinkade filed for a legal separation in April 2010. Less than two months later, one of the artist's many companies sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which resulted in the establishment of a payment plan to cover a legal settlement. Kinkade had lost a suit against former gallery owners, who said he had used his Christian faith to induce them to invest and then stuck them with unsellable goods. With interest and legal fees, he owed $2.8 million.

Two weeks after the filing, Kinkade was arrested for driving under the influence.

But 2010 apparently wasn't all bad. That's when he met Pinto, now 48, the dark-haired answer to his estranged blond wife. Trained as an electrical engineer, Pinto is of Indian descent and was raised in Kuwait. They talked. They bonded. According to Pinto, they fell in love.

First, however, Kinkade offered her a job as director of strategic projects.

"Thomas had a dream of taking his talents and visions internationally, and in particular to Asian markets, and to use his talents and celebrity for philanthropic purposes," Pinto said in court papers. "Thomas viewed me as a tremendous resource in reaching out to other cultures to carry out this expansive vision."

As part of the deal, she signed a confidentiality agreement.

In February 2011, however, John Hasting — chief executive of the Thomas Kinkade Co. — informed Pinto "that Nanette had 'blocked' my hiring." Kinkade and Hasting, Pinto said, assured her that the confidentiality agreement was therefore void.

A month later, Pinto and her youngest daughter moved into Kinkade's Monte Sereno home.

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

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