GREETING CARDS
For many years Garé was one of the
cornerstones in Leanin' Tree's production of
greeting cards with motifs from the Western art
scene. The cards (primarily aimed for use on
holidays and birthdays) were made in thousands of
copies and distributed in many parts of the
country, and Garé was guaranteed between 3 and
10% in royalties of all wholesales and retail
sales payable on a quarterly basis. This meant a
steady flow of royalties for many years from each
of the paintings that had been transformed into
greeting cards.
Garé had made several royalty agreements with
different greeting card publishing companies and
galleries during the 1960s, but her first
agreement with Leanin' Tree was established in
December, 1969, and the contract included her
newest painting Bullcreek Giants.
A complimentary offer of 500 cards was provided
for Garé as her personal cards (this was part of
all the future contracts as well). The following
month Garé signed the next contract, this time
for two paintings: Last Days of Summer and
Mountain Laurel Time.
Until she died in 1993, Garé was
sent a quarterly letter including a royalty
calculation worksheet pinning out how much money
she had earned in royalties during the previous
three months. Up to this time she had not had any
more cards manufactured for several years, but
there was still some small royalties coming in
for the old series in the descending region of
170 to 35 dollars during the 1990s.
There was a choice of version when
you bought a card; you could either have it with
the flip side printed with relevant bonmots or
quotations in connection with printed greetings
for Christmas or birthdays, or you could choose
the card with a blank flip side for use all year
long.
Leanin' Tree and Garé had a
mutually excellent business relationship for many
years. This can be demonstrated from one small
incident; for years the company had been sending
Garé new contracts to substitute outdated ones,
but one day Leanin' Tree proposed that the next
contract should be free from a time limit. Garé
agreed...
68-40 Bullcreek Giants |
|
69-10
Last Days of Summer |
|
