GARÉPOSTCARDS

When a married couple sends greeting cards to family and friends for Christmas and other festive events, it is often the wife who actually purchases and writes them with the husband as the benevolent cosigner. This was also the case in Garé's and Carl's household, where Carl much preferred to write long letters all year round.
Little is known of the contents of the greeting cards the couple sent off every year, as they were standard cards with a picture and a few well chosen, sometimes preprinted, words, but Garé was very much into the tradition. She made long lists of all the receivers of their Christmas cards in a special book. The number peaked in 1984 when no less than 70 recipient families were registered!

There can be little doubt that the couple issued many greeting cards that Garé had received in connection with her biggest, yearlong business partner, the Colorado based Leanin' Tree Museum, who bought the rights to reproduce some of her oil paintings as cards. She would often receive large quantities of complimentary cards with her motifs, so it became just another incentive to distribute them to family, friends, and business associates (see more HERE). Below are two examples of preprinted cards made specifically for Christmas (only the front covers are shown):

From the painting 72-32 Wapiti Reveille

From the painting 72-33 The Winter Blanket

One of the few filed - and published - postcards from the couple is the one reproduced below. In October 1977 Garé and Carl sent a congratulation to the Dutch Donald Duck Weekly in the form of a special postcard. Unfortunately, it is in a poor resolution and in black and white only, but it gives a fair indication of Garé's and Carl's personal work with their greetings. The original card is reproduced to the left, and a little clarification is added to the right:

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE
DUTCH DONALD DUCK WEEKLY
FOR 25 YEARS OF SUCCESSFUL
PUBLICATION.

CARL & GARÉ BARKS

From the 1976 painting Song of the South