Maxfield Parrish : The Masterworks

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The calendar art of Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) and his covers for Collier's , Ladies' Home Journal and other magazines in the early decades of the century look increasingly campy now. Featuring 145 color plates and 30 photographs, this snazzy showcase of Parrish's art will please fans and collectors. Gilbert, founder and director of the Maxfield Parrish Museum in Plainfield, N.H., admires the ambitious scope of Parrish's murals Florentine Fete and The Pied Piper, the dazzling tonalities of his book illustrations, the magical flavor of his children's pictures, and the dignity and beauty of his paintings of the American Southwest. Also reproduced are prints, landscapes, ads and paintings of New England farms and houses. Gilbert devotes a chapter to Parrish's technique, reprints several of his witty letters and discusses his extramarital affair with live-in companion and model Susan Lewin. (Oct.)

Donna Seaman

Devoted Parrish aficionado and founder and director of the Maxfield Parrish Museum near the artist's New Hampshire home, Gilbert is suitably qualified to select "masterworks" from the illustrator/painter's vast body of work. Parrish's polished technique and singular aesthetics evolved in tandem with the rise of commercial color lithography, and prints of his golden, idyllic, sensual, and enchanted portraits and landscapes became spectacularly popular, attaining a nearly cult status. The encouraged son of an artist, Parrish maintained a lifelong, disciplined, and rigorous dedication to his art. Gilbert, describing Parrish as "elusive and reclusive" as well as "warm, witty, handsome, stubborn, and self-deprecating," provides a synopsis of his life and career, particularly his unusual domestic arrangement with his wife and children and beloved model and muse, Susan Lewin (recognizable in countless paintings in roles both male and female), that gives us a strong sense of Parrish's nature. The masterworks Gilbert has chosen, displayed in 145 luscious colorplates, include book illustrations, the famous electric company calendars of the 1920s, his magnificent paintings of the Southwest, and, of course, numerous examples of his infamous "girls on rocks." Although Gilbert is a bit gushy, her commentary is enlightening, and the reproductions, many never before published, showcase Parrish's luminous, otherworldly art to full advantage.