Margaret Doris Hawkins was born on September 6, 1927 in Nashville as the elder of two children, insurance agents David Hawkins and Jesse (McBurnet) Hawkins. Margaret and her younger brother David attended public school.
In a 1975 article in Jehovah’s Witnesses publication Awake, she was “a sick child, often very shy alone,” and fostered an early passion for painting. It states. Her family attended a Methodist church, where she was known for her sketches of angels with big eyes.
At the age of 10, Margaret enrolled in the Watkins College of Art (later Watkins College of Art, Design, Film) art class. Her first oil painting depicts two little girls, one crying and the other laughing. At the age of 18, she attended the Trafagen Fashion School, a school of art and design in New York City.
In 1948 she married Frank Ulbrich. They had a daughter, Jane. The marriage ended with a divorce, as did her 1955 marriage to Miss Keane. Her marriage to McGuire in 1966 died in 1983. In addition to her daughter, Dr. Keane has her five stepchildren surviving her marriage. .McGuire, Danny, Maureen, Brian, Colleen McGuire, Mary Ann Russo; and eight grandchildren.
Dr. Keane returned to California in 1992. She founded a gallery in San Francisco, bought a house north of the city, and she has been painting and selling her work for over 25 years. In recent years she has lived with her daughter in the Napa area. After the appearance of Mr. Burton’s film and the book “Citizen Keane: The Big Lie Behind the Big Eyes” (2014), Dr. Keane’s work by Adam Purfrey and Cretas Nelson enjoyed a resurgence of public interest.
