BACKGROUND

Garé was a professional and highly praised painting artist all of her adult life and her specialty was renderings of nature scenes. She was especially drawn towards scenery featuring forests and deer, and she often got her ideas for motifs on car rides with her husband.
The results were quite impressive as Garé had a special way with vibrant colours, composition, creativity, photo realism, and visualization that attracted many buyers. Garé: I found I had a photographic eye for scenes that we saw - sometimes just passing in the car. We photographed many areas and sketched many, but for the main part my paintings are from my mind's eye - sometimes composites of several scenes, sometimes just one tree that impressed me.
Carl, on the other hand, was always interested in doing paintwork but his commitment to make Disney duck stories prevented him from starting painting on a full scale, until he retired from comic book work in 1966. During the 1950s he had dabbled with watercolours in his spare time, but now he switched to oil paintings full time. Carl was self-taught just as he had been as a drawing artist, so Garé introduced him to the fundamentals.
The couple even took a course in oil painting together, where, supposedly, Garé could have taught the teachers more than she received! But Garé always stood by her husband, and she continued to give him valuable pointers for the rest of her life. Carl also had a large number of paint instruction books, that he had collected during the decades, and they served him as technical inspiration.

GETTING STARTED

It is commonly known that Garé and Carl met for the first time in 1943 at his chicken farm, where she was looking for drawing work. He had nothing for her, though. But it is not commonly known that they actually met the next time in 1952, when they happened to bump into each other at a county art show. Shortly after they were working together on Carl's stories (Garé's main tasks were to ink the texts and dialogues as well as blotting the larger black areas in the panels), and this went on until Carl's retirement.
At that point Garé had been a well known and treasured artist in the community for years partly thanks to her personal promotion at fairs, and her sales were quite satisfactory.
When Carl had received his last paycheck from his publisher, the couple had to rely on Garé's income, as Carl had a long way to go, before he was able to contribute to the family economy.

MOTIFS

A

B

Carl's approach to painting in oil was somewhat different to that of his wife's, as he was spreading his motifs considerably more. He made numerous landscapes, church portraits, Western scenes, and renderings of diverse types of exotic girls, as if he could not decide on a more specific line of motif (there are numerous pages at this website showing examples of Carl's diverse types of paintings). But it is also interesting to learn how accomplished Carl had become in his wife's 'domain', when you compare the couple's individual forest paintings marked A and B. They were made only a few years apart, and shortly before Carl's Disney duck painting era began. Can you figure out which of the similarly looking paintings were made by which artist?*

SALES

Garé and Carl exhibiting in Palm Springs, California, 1968

One may think that when you have finished a painting, your work is done. This may be true in some cases, but oftentimes the artist also is required to promote his or her work in order to sell the product. The Barkses did not enjoy this side of their professional careers (in fact, Garé loathed it), but they surely realized that their occasional presence at art shows and fairs would have a positive impact on their continuing status and interest among potential buyers.
So they attended numerous gatherings over the years, but only enough to keep the interest alive. Garé: So long as my work sold faster than I could produce it and pleased the buying public enough that it fetched good prices I saw no reason to chase after exhibitions or awards. I have entered local shows at various times and won numerous ribbons and even gold trophies, the gold ones I've kept as ornaments!
Garé wanted to sell paintings that people would buy and hang in their homes. Later in her career she was trying to sell paintings that would sell calendars and greeting cards. To sell these, she had to choose subject matter that would sell, and paint in a technique that would sell - and that meant nature and 'realism'.

In 1967 Carl wrote to a fan (excerpts): ... My wife is quite an accomplished artist in oils, and I get much pleasure out of pushing her career ... We've just returned from a weekend in Santa Barbara, where we showed on the Beachwalk at their Arts Fiesta. Garé (my wife) was probably the biggest seller of the show. Certainly she had the highest-priced paintings...
And in 1968 a response to another fan (excerpt): ... My wife's paintings, landscapes with deer and birds, etc., sell very well, but my paintings stack up in towering piles. I like to paint pictures of people in slightly satirical situations. They are fun to do and the public stands around and admires them, but they don't sell worth a damn...

From these two letters it is plain to see that Carl had a hard time trying to earn a living, and as late as in 1971 he wrote to a near friend (excerpts): ... We are both very busy. Garé has dashed off several small paintings to fill urgent orders ... I, too, am trying to get some small paintings finished ... I'll be glad when Garé earns enough money to support me, so I can retire for real ...
A few months later Carl began his unique Disney duck painting era, making him the breadwinner - but out of retirement.

A FAIR TRADE

22-66 Hogan With a View

The actual receipt

Here is an example of one of Carl's much more rare fair trades compared to those of his wife's: In 1966 he made his 22nd oil painting that year, and he succeeded in selling it shortly after. The trade was a bit unusual as it was actually Garé who closed the deal and wrote the receipt to the purchasing couple (some of the identification elements have been blotted out by the editor). Incidentally, it is interesting to notice how much Garé's signature looked like her husbands.
As you can see the price was 20 dollars plus tax, which was quite a fair price at the time. And a good investment! It was sold at an auction in December 2014 at 2,000 dollars...