OIL PAINTINGS

Garé was an extremely productive artist when she worked in her foremost and highly beloved profession - oil paintings featuring images of the natural locations where she lived. The sub-pages present you to most of the paintings she made during the entire 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, a span of time that marks the height of her great production.
The vast number of images published in the sub-pages are taken from several sources; the primary source has been Garé's own slides (accompanied with explanatory texts from her index cards), other sources have been paintings made for greeting cards by The Leanin' Tree Company in Colorado, as well as photos sent to this website by owners of Garé's paintings. All in all you are presented to a limited showcase of the exquisite works of an impressive and highly talented artist who tirelessly went on to paint her beloved motifs until her death.

 

 

REMARKS:

1. The small pictures (thumbnails) in the index sub-pages are clickable links to pages containing larger versions of the paintings with brief commentaries.
2. The paintings in the sub-pages have been given the code numbers that Garé used, if known. The first two digits determine the year and the next digits are strictly sequential. For example, her fourth painting from 1971 is coded as 71-4.
3. The pages do not always present the paintings in chronological order. This is because this website has received the painting images from diverse sources, and they have been published in the order they were brought forward.
4. Most of Garé's paintings were made using oil paints but occasionally she would use acrylic paints. The sub-pages make no distinction between the two mediums.
5. The surface material was either canvas or, mostly, board i.e. Masonite (a fiberboard with a very smooth front surface) or Cresent (a special type of illustration board).
6. The paintings were made in a very great range of sizes from the thumbnail-ish 5" (130mms) to the colossal 60" (1520mms). It is important to notice that the measurements stated in the sub-pages are for the full painting sizes and not for the visible sizes when they appear within a frame. Garé always supplied frames with her paintings.
7. The actual renderings of the paintings are not necessarily comparative as for the actual measurements. In some instances it has been necessary to cut a painting for different reasons.
8. The rendered sizes of the paintings in the sub-pages are not comparative to each other but merely sized to meet the standard layout design for the pages.
9. Many of the painting motifs can be found on this website as preliminary sketches.
10. If you attempt to view the paintings chronologically you will find that Garé often tended to deliver somewhat coherent series with common dominators; she had blue, golden, and pink periods, she had semi-experimental (called Tonal) periods, and she made small clusters of paintings depicting impressions from that year's vacation.
11. All the paintings based on Garé's slides were photographed by Carl. Although one of his favourite hobbies was Photography the end results vary with profound influence on many of the painting renderings. Carl photographed the paintings outside in the couple's backyard in order to obtain the optional and most natural lighting, but the downside to this decision was that the frames would cast thin shadows along one or two of the painting sides (and sometimes the attached corner protectors used for transport would cast triangular shadows as well). Consequently the renderings in the sub-pages have often been cut to smaller sizes in order to obtain 'clean' images.
12. Over the years Carl happened to take photographs slightly out of focus, but these are included in the sub-pages as well. It shall be remembered that these 'baddies' could not be immediately reshot (they were photographed in the days when you had to deliver the film rolls to a developer and the result would only be apparent after several days, and then the paintings had long since been delivered to the purchasers). Also, the couple would often arrange it so that 4 paintings were present in one rather distant shot making the individual paintings quite course and undetailed to enjoy in a fair blown up size for use in this website. An observation: In general, it seems somewhat puzzling that it was not ensured that the slides were always of prime quality. After all, each painting represented several hours of work for Garé and when they were finished they would be out of her life forever. Granted, the slides were intended for private use only, but a little more heedfulness with the final documentation would have been in everybody's interest.
13. The original paintings were sold to galleries (in commission) or directly to private collectors. The names of the initial purchasers are known to this website, but are not revealed.

 

OIL PAINTINGS
WITH KNOWN TITLES
PART 1
OIL PAINTINGS
WITH KNOWN TITLES
PART 2
OIL PAINTINGS
WITH KNOWN TITLES
PART 3
OIL PAINTINGS
WITH KNOWN TITLES
PART 4
OIL PAINTINGS
WITH KNOWN TITLES
PART 5
OIL PAINTINGS
WITH KNOWN TITLES
PART 6
OIL PAINTINGS
WITH UNKNOWN TITLES
PART 1
OIL PAINTINGS
WITH UNKNOWN TITLES
PART 2

 

Are you the proud owner of an original painting by Garé Barks?
Would you like it to be added to the list? Then please contact this website at cbarks@cbarks.dk.

 

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