Maxfield Parrish

Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966)

Frederick Parrish received his first art lessons from his father, Stephen Parrish, the owner of a Philadelphia stationery store who became known in the 1880s for his etchings of coastal New England. Frederick studied architecture at Haverford College from 1888 to 1891 and enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1891 to study under Robert Vonnoh and Thomas Anschutz. About 1893 he studied briefly with the famous illustrator Howard Pyle.

Early in his career as a professional artist Parrish adopted his maternal grandmother’s name, Maxfield. During the golden age of illustration, about 1850 to 1925, new developments in reproductive processes and an increasingly literate public hungry for information and entertainment increased the market for illustrated fiction. Parrish was perhaps the most famous artist in America during this time, known to the general public through his countless designs and illustrations in national magazines, such as “Collier's, Harper's Weekly”, and “Scribner's”, and in fairy tales and children's books, such as “The Arabian Nights”, Kenneth Grahame's “Dream Days” and “Golden Age”, and L. Frank Baum's “Mother Goose in Prose”, and in commercial advertisements for Jell-O, Hires Root Beer, and Edison Mazda. Many of these images were also released as color posters and calendars. Parrish's highly decorative designs were especially praised for their rich colors and meticulous detail, qualities that set him apart from his contemporaries even more than his compositions.

In 1895 Parrish married Lydia Austen, a student at the Drexel Institute. Three years later they moved to rural New Hampshire, where they built a large house and studio, The Oaks, across the valley from Stephen Parrish's new home, Northcote, and near the budding art colony of Cornish. Parrish worked until he was into his nineties, when arthritis made it difficult for him to hold a brush. He died at The Oaks at the age of ninety-five.

Dusk, 1942

Oil on Masonite, 13 3/8 x 15 3/8 in. (34 x 39.1 cm)

Signed and dated (lower left): “Maxfield Parrish '42”; inscribed (center verso): “Maxfield Parrish” / 1942 / $3000

Charles F. Smith Fund (1966.52)

Maxfield Parrish ® Licensed by ASaP and VAGA, New York, NY

From the beginning of his career, Parrish showed a fondness for landscape. In the early 1890s he painted scenes of Annisquam, Massachusetts, where he summered with his father; in 1901 and 1902 he painted landscape views of Arizona and Italy for “Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine”. As early as 1916 Parrish expressed his desire to spend more time on pure landscapes rather than commercial commissions. (1) In 1934 this long-awaited opportunity came in the form of a commission from Brown and Bigelow, a Saint Paul, Minnesota, calendar and note card firm. He subsequently painted landscapes almost exclusively.

“Dusk” is typical of the simple but striking landscapes Parrish designed for Brown and Bigelow. The small white house with green shutters sits at the top of a steep snow-covered hill. A red barn is barely visible through the trees surrounding the house. Despite its isolated location, the house seems welcoming, (Parrish acknowledged that this cozy, inviting feeling was an important consideration in calendar design) smoke emanates from the chimney and a warm light glows in the windows. (2) At the right, a small town lies in the mountain valley far below.

The scene is twilight, the time of day when the light and the colors of the sky are quickly changing, the perfect time for Parrish's characteristic intense hues. The sky is acid green, the trees bright green, the snow cool bluish gray, the mountains violet, and the town and hillside below a shade popularly known as "Maxfield Parrish blue." The sky melts into various hues from deep green to pale yellow. All the objects are crisply defined with photographic sharpness, so that the intense pure colors vividly play off one another.

Parrish was especially fond of the rural Vermont and New Hampshire landscapes; the countryside near his home inspired endless variations of lush green summer landscapes and sparkling winter scenes. Interestingly, Parrish painted many of his winter scenes during the summer time, which may account for the strange presence of oaks and maples in full green foliage in the midst of snow-covered scenes. (3)

Parrish submitted several landscapes to Brown and Bigelow, every year for the company to reproduce in their calendar. Beginning in 1941 he also provided a winter subject for its line of smaller calendars and greeting cards. (4) “Dusk”, one of the earliest winter scenes, appeared in three different size calendars in 1944 and was also reproduced later as a high-quality "executive print." (5) Parrish's title often differed from Brown and Bigelow’s—“Dusk”, for instance, appeared as “Eventide.” (6) Fifty different landscapes were reproduced between 1934 and 1963; Parrish created about fifty more that were never published. (7) He retained ownership of his landscapes and sold many of them after they were returned by Brown and Bigelow.

MAS

Bibliography

“Maxfield Parrish: A Retrospective”, exhib. cat. (Springfield, Mass.: George Walter Vincent Smith Museum, 1966); Coy Ludwig, “Maxfield Parrish” (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1973); Maxfield Parrish Jr., “Maxfield Parrish: Master of Make-Believe”, exhib. cat. (Chadds Ford, Penn: Brandywine River Museum, 1974); Marian S. Sweeney, “Maxfield Parrish Prints: A Collector's Guide” (Dublin, N.H.: W. L. Bauhan, 1974); Alma Gilbert, “Maxfield Parrish: The Masterworks” (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1992).

Notes:

1. Ludwig, “Maxfield Parrish”, p. 134.

2. Ibid., p. 175.

3. Ibid., p. 185.

4. Ibid., p. 214.

5. Teresa Roussin, Brown and Bigelow, telephone conversation with author, October 27, 1995.

6. William Holland and Douglas Congdon-Martin, “The Collectible Maxfield Parrish with Value Guide” (Atglen, Penn.: Schiffer Publishing, 1993), p. 144.

7. Gilbert, “Maxfield Parrish”, p. 168.