Al Carbee

Albert Nickerson "Al" Carbee (February 10, 1914 – October 3, 2005) was a photographer, portraitist, video and collage artist from Saco, Maine. His work is most commonly noted for enthusiastically featuring Barbie dolls. "If anyone knows Barbie, it is Carbee" noted the Bangor Daily News in its coverage of the then 89-year old's debut show at the Saco Museum in Maine. Carbee was a reclusive, eccentric outsider artist who spent most of his time alone in his house creating works featuring Barbies.

Life

Al Carbee was born in Portland, Maine on February 10, 1914. After studying at the Portland School of Fine and Applied Art for two years, he moved to Boston in 1937 where he attended his uncle Scott Carbee's School of Art. Soon after finishing his studies, he got a job at Sullivan's Photo Service where he worked on municipal photography as a dark-room attendant and photo-finisher. During World War II, Carbee was hired by the Army as a radiographer due to his previous experience and expertise in photography and film development. After the war, Carbee moved to Portland, Maine where he built layouts and billboards for the Central Maine Power Company. It was around this time that he met and married his wife, Edna. A few years later they moved to Saco, Maine where he juggled various odd jobs. He opened up his own hobby shop, sold guppies through mail order and built an entire outdoor go-kart racetrack which he ran throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Throughout this time and after those jobs, Al Carbee continued to make art at a fast pace unbeknownst to his community. His wife found his fascination with Barbies embarrassing and tried to tell him he should keep it hidden. His collection of Barbies were relegated to a back room in his house until his wife died. In 1997, his wife Edna died. It was about a month after this loss, that Carbee's art was discovered by Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier reporter, Aaron Smith. Carbee made copies of Jeremy Workman's short film "Carbee's Barbies" and passed them around. This led to his first and only exhibit of his work during his lifetime, which was at the Saco Museum.

Art

The art of Al Carbee slips through genres blending photography, collage, writing with popular iconography. Much of his work, especially his photography, features Barbie dolls uniquely dressed inhabiting various otherworldly environments. Throughout his art, one notes his desire to make his subjects larger than life. After Carbee died, his house was seized by the bank and all of the artwork in his house was destroyed.

Magical Universe

The first time Jeremy Workman and his girlfriend met Carbee he took footage of his artwork for a short four-minute film called Carbee's Barbies, which was shown in some small venues. Carbee began corresponding a lot with Workman, which lead to the creation of the documentary, Magical Universe. Magical Universe, an award-winning documentary featuring Al Carbee debuted in November 2013. The movie shows the discovery of Al Carbee's massive trove of artwork along with the decade-long relationship between Carbee and the director, Jeremy Workman and his girlfriend, Astrid von Ussar.