Maxfield Parrish

Maxfield Parrish had a long and very successful career.

He was a book illustrator, including many children's books such as Dream Days by Kenneth Grahame, Mother Goose in Prose by Frank Baum of Wizard of Oz fame, and Arabian Nights.

He was a very popular magazine illustrator, his art gracing the covers of Harper's Bazaar, Scribners and Collier's to name a few.

Maxfield Parrish was a poster, calendar, and advertising artist as well, doing ads for such companies as Jell-O, Oneida Silver, Edison-Mazda, and Uniroyal Tires.

Color reproductions became a big part of his business. Art became a part of the popular culture and people who could never afford original paintings now bought art prints. Maxfield Parrish did several paintings for the House of Art who distributed his work as art prints. Thus, his art became more accessible, affordable and very popular.

Maxfield Parrish was commissioned to do several murals, one of which hangs in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. I was fortunate enough to see this original painting several years ago and I can tell you that none of the pictures of it in books do it justice. It is called The Pied Piper and it is truly beautiful.

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From the designer: ""Daybreak" is an oil painting on canvas, painted by Maxfield Parrish in 1922. Parrish's paintings are a combination of fantasy landscapes and fairy tales, with saturated color and luminosity. He would apply bright layers of thin oil paint, alternating with varnish over stretched paper to get the luminous effects he was known for. He would often build depth by cutting out images and adding them to his paper, coating them with layers of glaze."

Daybreak - by Maxfield Parrish by Aquavel
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The environment in which young Maxfied Parrish grew up was perfectly suited for his creative, artistic personality. His cultured parents encouraged his artistic pursuits in every way possible, exposing him to great literature, art, and music. His father, Stephen Parrish, who was also a painter, but came from a strict Quaker upbringing where painting was considered sinful. Stephen had to resort to painting secretly in the attic. He therefore fostered his son's painting abilities in any way that he could. Stephen taught his son about drawing, etching, and painting.

"The Lantern Bearers" was painted by the American Artist Maxfield Parrish in 1908. It is an oil on canvas laid down on board. Parrish's paintings are a combination of fantasy landscapes and fairy tales, with saturated color and luminosity."

In the summer of 1884 Mr. and Mrs. Parrish took Maxfield, aged 14, to Europe. On their two year sojourn, they toured England, France and Northern Italy, visiting art museums, attending concerts and the opera.
Stephen Parrish spent much of his time in Europe painting while Maxfield attended the school of Dr. Kornemann in Paris. Maxfield became very interested in the architecture of Europe.

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The Parrish family returned to the states in 1886 and Maxfield, after considering a career in architecture, ended up at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and began preparing for a career as an artist.

Maxfield considered his father, Stephen, to be his most influential teacher and the two of them shared a summer studio in Massachusetts for a time.

It is often said that Maxfield Parrish studied under Howard Pyle at the Drexel Institute of Arts and Science but the Institute has no record of Parrish ever studying there. He once assembled a portfolio to show Pyle but Pyle said there was nothing more he could teach Parrish. He said that Parrish had already began to develop his own style and advised him to continue refining that.

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Maxfield Parrish married Lydia Austen in 1895 and they eventually built a house in Cornish, New Hampshire across from his parents' home. Maxfield not only designed the house but built it as well.

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I own this book and I just love it. It is full of not only beautiful Maxfield Parrish images but it is also a gold mine of information about the artist and his schooling, his family, his work and all about his life.

Maxfield Parrish