Take Sances' Kinkade parody, "Holiday Home." There's the cookie-cutter Kinkadean cottage lit up in a gauzy glow for a party, while outside a homeless man pushes a cart down the snow-covered sidewalk.

Kinkade’s eponymous mall stores and QVC appearances were among his many lucrative outlets. He was dubbed the “Painter of Light,” even though British artist J.M.W. Turner first claimed that ...