Carl Barks probably painted his first watercolors as early as 1956, partly following motifs from Ted Kautzky's books, and in 1958 visited a course in oil painting together with his wife, Garé. His activities as a painter remained sporadic, however, until he retired in 1966 and created several oil paintings (mostly landscapes and genre scenes) which he sold with modest success at small art markets.
The commercial breakthrough did not come until 1971 when he produced his first oil painting with a Duckburg scene at the request of a fan, Glenn Bray. In the following 5 years Barks created more than 120 oil paintings with Duck motifs which are nearly all included in the book »The Fine Art of Walt Disney's Donald Duck« (1981).
When Disney revoked the license in 1976, Barks started a new series of oil paintings under the supertitle »Kings and Queens of Myth and Legend«, but did not continue this thread after the 4th picture. More successful were his »Famous Figures of History as They Might Have Looked Had Their Genes Gotten Mixed with Waterfowl«, begun in 1978, mostly small-sized watercolors with anthropomorphic animals of which he released about 60 in the following years.
Starting in 1982, Barks painted a second series of Duck oils for Another Rainbow's lithograph project. In 1994 Barks (or rather the »Carl Barks Studio« as represented by managers Bill Grandey and Kathy Morby) parted with Another Rainbow and commissioned Disney with the distribution of lithographs and serigraphs.
The following list is based mainly on Matti Eronen's book »Carl Barks' Surviving Comic Book Art« (Duck oils) and on the art book »Animal Quackers« (Waterfowls); with certainty it does not cover Carl Barks' work as a painter in full, especially as the »realistic« motifs are concerned. Also, the Disney watercolors and several oil preliminaries for never realized paintings are not included.
Other graphic works, as pencil drawings or sketches, were not gathered here. Thus, you will not find the about 70 crayon drawings with Disney motifs Barks made in 1996/1997.
Each entry has the following format:
[title]
[year of creation] [size] [number] [material]
[comments]
The number is Barks' internal code (current number + year). Sizes are given as height x width in inches.
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