Maxfield Parrish

Master of Make-Believe

Guest Curator: Alma Gilbert, Director, Cornish Colony Gallery and Museum

Exhibition toured 2005 - 2006

Ecstasy
Maxfield Parrish
Collection of John H. Chapman

Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966), one of the best-known and beloved American artists of the 20th century, enjoyed a level of popular success unparalleled in the history of art. His success was due not only to his consummate mastery over the crafts of painting and illustration, but also to the newly developed high-quality color printing techniques which aided the massive dissemination of his work. Parrish considered himself “strictly a ‘popular artist’,” although he studied architecture at Haverford College and then transferred to the prestigious fine art department at the Pennsylvania Academy. There he quickly melded his fine and applied art skills into his own imaginative style. Parrish committed himself to the popularization and democratization of art, viewing beauty as a form of social betterment.

This multi-lender exhibition features approximately 70 works of superlative design and sumptuous beauty, including his beloved calendar and book illustrations, his signature classicized paintings, and rarely seen murals including the 18 ½ foot North Wall commissioned by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney for her studio in Westbury, Long Island.