A collection of 1970s era art catalogs.

Fine-art Kitsch

Of course Barks's Disney paintings are kitsch, all of them. From 1971 to 1976 he recreated, in oils, scenes and covers from his Disney comics at the request of his comic-book fans. His paintings from the 1980s and 90s, intended to become limited-edition lithographs, are even more so, often catering to a wider Disney audience hungry for validation that their nostalgic obsessions were actually "art." Here's the thing: yes Barks's paintings are kitsch, but they are also art. They were not illustrations or book covers: Even most of Frazetta's master works all started as book covers. From the beginning, Barks intended that his paintings serve no other purpose than to be framed and hung on walls.

Because of this, Barks brought a fine-art sensibility to his work. He'd spent years learning color theory, rendering, technique, composition, and materials; in 1971, he'd just spent five years selling landscapes and other subjects on the gallery circuit in Southern California, and knew how to craft a commercially appealing work of art. Barks's paintings may be kitsch, but they are still fine-art, and the first of their kind, taking an incredible amount of skill to execute. And as you can see from my early copies, a skill that was far beyond the abilities of a teenage high-school dropout.