Lithographic preliminaries

Carl Barks was a meticulous craftsman who preferred to work out details of composition and color as preliminary “idea sketches’ – ­usually in oil on masonite. Sometimes, he abandoned them as unworkable or inappropriate, or perhaps occasionally just lost interest. In other cases, it might have taken him two or three tries just to get his concept close enough to what he wanted before he felt comfortable tack­ling the final painting. (source: Another Rainbow).

Another Rainbow released a lithographic suite in 1986 and 1989, respectively, based on Carl’s preliminary concepts. Each set contained 10 lithographs and were released in a limited edition 500 copies. All lithos in the set we initialled in hand by Carl Barks. Today, these sets are few and far between as the more unfinished/‘rough’ Disney duck art struck a chord with the fans and collectors alike, and it must be conceded that although the lithos are not the largest in size, they do work brilliantly as wall décor in their own right. Disneyana+ has managed to acquire a limited quantity of these popular prelim lithographs. When it comes to imagery, paper quality, collectability etc. these hand-initialled Carl Barks lithos offer a lot of bang for your duck buck!