Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish, Daybreak, illustration for home use as wall art, published by The House of Art, 1922.
American Illustrator. 1870-1966.
Trained at the Drexel Institute, and under the tutelage of Howard Pyle for some of his time as a student, Parrish developed a whimsical style of illustration drawing from the aesthetics of Art Nouveau, the Arts and Crafts movement, Neoclassicism, and Pre-Raphaelite painting. His distinctive effects in light and color were partially achieved by his use of photographically-traced ink drawings beneath transparent colored oil glazes. A machinist by training, he produced models of fanciful castles that he photographed for inclusion in his fairytale scenes.
Maxfield Parrish, The King and Queen Might Eat Thereof, and Noblemen Besides, Advertisement for Jell-O gelatin, 1922.
Parrish received commissions for advertising design, calendars (especially for Edison Lamps; his trademark “girls on rocks” pictures), illustrated children’s books, theatre scenery, interior murals, and magazine covers. He was under an exclusive magazine contract with Collier’s from 1904 to 1911.
Important works include his first book in 1897, L. Frank Baum’s Mother Goose in Prose, pictures for The Golden Age by Kenneth Grahame in 1900, and the illustrations for Arabian Nights and Greek Mythology in 1909. Parrish also created many popular free-standing works, particularly idealized landscapes intended for sale as reproductions. He built a significant business producing “wall art,” to use the term of the trade, through the publisher House of Art. He also generated many greeting card designs for Brown & Bigelow, a major calendar company.
His work has been quoted extensively in latter-day advertising and film. A Nestlé ad from 1986 with direct references to Daybreak and The Dinkey-Bird was successfully challenged by the Parrish estate.
Maxfield Parrish, “On to the garden wall…” illustration for The Golden Age, by Kenneth Grahame, 1900.
Maxfield Parrish, Ecstasy, illustration for Edison Mazda Lamps calendar, 1930.
Maxfield Parrish, detail from Contentment, an Edison Mazda Lamps calendar illustration from 1928. (This is the “girls on rocks” genre Parrish self-deprecatingly swore off in the 1930s.
Maxfield Parrish, Dusk, greeting card for Brown & Bigelow, 1942.
Maxfield Parrish, The Dinkey-Bird, illustration for Eugene Field poem in the Ladies Home Journal, reproduced soon thereafter in the book Poems of Childhood, 1904. (see below)
Maxfield Parrish, cover illustration for Poems of Childhood, by Eugene Field, Scribners, 1904. This was the first Parrish book to include full color illustrations.
Book cover for The Golden Age, by Kenneth Grahame, 1900.
Maxfield Parrish, advertising illustration for Djer-Kiss Toilet Water, 1917.
Maxfield Parrish, “Once more were damels rescued…” illustration for The Golden Age, by Kenneth Grahame, 1900.
Maxfield Parrish, Cinderella, illustration for Harper’s Bazaar, 1914.