Christian Riese Lassen

Lassen's art was popular in Japan in the 1990s and used for Sumimoto Bank cash cards and passbooks.^[2] In 1996 Masudaya released 'Digiglassen', a jigsaw puzzle video game featuring Lassen's artwork.^[3]

Lassen has made extensive use of image licensing. His licensed products included stationary, puzzles, posters and a CD-Rom. In the 1990s, Lassen produced works in a collaboration with Disney Art Editions featuring Disney characters.^[4] He also had licensing deals with Panasonic and American Greetings,^[5] and painted cars for Lamborghini.^[6] In 2002, he had 70 licenses for various products and employed licensing staff to explore new deals.^[7]

Lassen had a number of sales galleries, including locations in Las Vegas,^[8][9] and Tokyo.^[2]

He has been compared to other 'mass-market art' painters including Thomas Kinkade and Howard Behrens.^[10] Sociologist Kashima Takashi has written that "Lassen's works have largely been ignored by art critics."^[2] Art critic Peter Plagens has stated of Lassen's work "The colors are horrible to look at. They’re garish, and they have that cheap reproduction kind of look."^[11] Japanese art critic Noriyuki Sawaragi has written that Lassen has a poor reputation in the Japanese art world in part because of his aggressive sales tactics.^[12]

Lassen was included in the Wall Street Journal article "Shopping-Mall Masters" noting that a price of $300,000 was paid for one of his landscapes.^[13]

In 1995, Lassen stated he owned seven homes in Hawaii. One of these was a $5 million home in Diamond Head, Hawaii.^[4]

In 2021, Lassen was put on probation for burglary and damaging a car.^[14]