Looking at a Maxfield Parrish painting is like peeking into an idyllic world of romance and fantasy, youth and beauty, humanity and nature-where the unreal becomes real.

         Known for his  fantastical paintings and laborious artistic methods, Parrish has left behind a body of work documenting an era when artistic illustrations, the anchor of every newspaper, magazine, and book, made illustrators as famous as writers.
 Maxfield Parrish’s great-grandfather, Edward Parish, born in Yorkshire, England, was a Captain in the English Navy appointed as Surveyor General of Maryland.  Captain Parrish owned some 3,000 acres of what is now Baltimore, and left to his progeny a legacy of prosperity and industriousness.
 
         Dillwyn and Susanna Maxfield Parrish (Maxfield’s grandparents) were religious Quakers and ardent activists in the anti-slavery movement.  They had several children including Stephen Parrish, born in 1846.  Stephen was the first of the Parrishes to exhibit any artistic interest or ability.  He painted one of his first works at age 23, calling it Rain on the Lilla Rush Kill and signed it "Step. M. Parrish" taking the "M" from his mother’s maiden name, Maxfield.
 
        In 1869, Stephen married Elizabeth Bancroft and in 1870 Frederick Maxfield Parrish, their only child, was born.  Throughout his life Maxfield Parrish was known by his family members as Fred.  As a boy he was called "Buck" by his cousins and friends.  Later in life friends would call him "M.P."  Strangers, fans, and neighbors would address him as Mr. Parrish.
 
        In 1877, Maxfield’s father, Stephen Parrish, sold his stationery business to pursue his true love:  art and painting.  That same year, Parrish took his wife and son to France so he could immerse himself in studying the work of French etcher Adolphe Appian.  This trip made a lasting impression on young Maxfield.  One of his first known drawings was completed on this trip.
 
        By 1883, Stephen Parrish had won much acclaim and was considered one of the three greatest etchers in the world.  His contemporaries were James Abbot McNeill Whistler and Charles A. Platt.
Once again, in 1884, Parrish took his family back to Europe for a two-year stay.  During the time spent in Europe, Maxfield, now 14, studied Classical art and haunted the grand museums at his disposal.
 
        When 15, Maxfield caught typhoid fever and nearly died from its effects.  During his recuperation his father taught him to etch and draw.  These lessons provided the foundation for Maxfield’s artistic creativity.  After a full recovery, Maxfield was able to observe others as they copied the works of the Van Eyck brothers, Boticelli, Titian, Rembrandt, and other Old Masters.  As he observed the artists, he became fascinated with the laboriuos  technique of applying single coatings of color and glazing those layers with varnish.  Parrish would make this technique his own and used it for the rest of his life.
 
        The work of many contemporary artists of the time also influenced Parrish, especially that of Lord Leighton, whose work and personal life he emulated to some degree.  Lord Leighton’s work was influenced by the romaticism of Keats, Blake, and Lord Byron.  His subject matter consisted primarily of princesses and saints, which appealed greatly to Parrish’s own sense of romanticism and fantasy.  Parrish also noticed in Leighton’s work the implicit use of a technique called "dynamic symmetry," a technique he would learn formally a few years down the road.  Every work Maxfield Parrish would produce in the future used this ancient technique of mathematical proportioning.

        Leighton lived a flamboyant lifestyle unique in the Victorian era.  For many years, Leighton used the same model, Alice Pullman, an uneducated girl who would end up posing for Leighton’s most significant works.  She later became an actress and was known as Dorothy Dene.  Although Leighton denied it, it was well known that he and Dene were lovers.  To young Maxfield, this lifestyle seemed to befit an artiste.  It was a world he would come to know intimately himself.
 
        After a two-year stint in Europe, Parrish returned to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in Haverford College’s class of 1892.  Here he studied architectural technology with a concentration on the classical form and the principles of dynamic symmetry.
While Maxfield was in college, his parents visited the renowned artist colony in Cornish, New Hampshire, founded by sculptor and friend Augustus Saint-Gardens. They immediately discovered a world where a number of other artists and thinkers found sanctuary and solace.  This, they decided, would be their new home.

         In 1894 Stephen Parrish purchased a large plot of land and commisioned  architect Wilson Eyre, Jr., to design and build their home.  With its custom furniture, formal gardens, and scenic setting, the home provided the Parrishes a haven of luxury.  They called their estate "Northcote".  Meanwhile, Maxfield was still learning the art of architectural design.  He took great pleasure in constructing the architectural models, but grew dispassionate toward the other required classes.  He loathed the restricting building codes prevalent at the time.  After three years in architecture college, Parrish dropped out.  This was highly uncommon for a promising talent in 1891.

         In 1894 Parrish enrolled in the best art school in the country, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and began painting his first mature works.  His first showing was at the Philadelphia Art Club and featured a painting entitled Moonrise, created during a stay at an artist’s colony on the Annisquam River in Gloucester, Massachusetts.  At the Academy Maxfield began developing his skills as an illustrator under the instruction of his three biggest influences:  Thomas Anshutz, Howard Pyle, and Jay Hambridge.
Thomas Anshutz was a realist/colorist painter who encouraged his students to experiment with bold color and photography.  Anschutz carried on the technique of using photographic images as studies for painting-a method developed by Thomas Eakins twelve years prior to Parrish’s enrollment in the Academy.  Parrish would use the method religiously in his own work, using photography to capture a model’s pose, lay out a painting’s stucture, and document a finished work.

         From famed illustrator Howard Pyle, Parrish received inspiration to take on a career of his own.  Here he learned the art of using historic subject matter to attract the sentiment of an audience.  He also learned to appreciate and exploit costumed models to bring out a magical presence in his work.

         Maxfield attended a number of lectures at the Salmagundi Club in New York City, where he gleaned from theorist/historian Jay Hambridge a sense of harmony and balance.  This is also where Parrish polished his understanding and application of dynamic symmetry.
         What is dynamic symmetry?  Hambridge theorized, "lines, angles, and curves are regarded merely as defining areas which compose the units of a map-like arrangement within the boundaries of the picture frame or the canvas stretcher."
 
        Hambridge used examples from ancient civilizations (Rome, Greece, and Egypt) to illustrate his hypothesis.  His theories were based on mathematical analysis of architectural monuments such as the pyramids and the Parthenon.

         Parrish embraced Hambridge’s theories, which provided a basis for the natural balance and order in Parrish’s work.  Having integrated the theories of his mentors into an original style, the promising young artist was ready to begin his life as a professional painter and craftsman.
 
        In the fall of 1894, while still at the Academy, Parrish received his first paid commission, a mural for the University of Pennsylvania’s Mask and Wig Club, modeled after the nursery rhyme, Old King Cole.  The mural proved an instant success, and the Mask and Wig Club presented several more commissions for Parrish’s execution.  He designed bulletin and announcement boards, and decorative motifs for the Club theater.
 
        A variation on the Old King Cole theme came when Parrish was commisioned to do a mural for the New York Knickerbocker Hotel (now known as the St. Regis Hotel).  The mural immortalized industrialist John Jacob Astor as "King Cole".
In 1891 Maxfield Parrish met Lydia Austin, an art teacher at the Drexel Institute.  She was an extremely beautiful and creative creature.  Four years after the two met, Maxfield began courting her.  They were married in June 1895 in Philadelphia.  The newlyweds shared many things in common:  they were both painters, both socialites, both ambitious.  Having already scheduled a trip to Europe months before, Parrish left his bride just four days after the wedding.  From the beginning of their marriage it became obvious that Maxfield’s professional endeavors would take precedence over the relationship.
 
        The artist acquired national fame in 1895, when two of his designs were placed on the cover of Harper’s Bazar.  This was the Golden Age of Illustration, and Parrish was to become the Golden Boy of this Golden Age.  One must remember, there was no TV, radio, or motion pictures to compete with publishers, the public’s sole source of information and entertainment.  As a result, good illustrators were in great demand.  After all, an imaginative illustration was not only beautiful to behold; it also sold magazines!
 

        In the following years, Parrish would illustrate for a number of Harper and Brothers magazines, including:  Harper’s Round Table, Harper’s Weekly, Harper’s Monthly, and Harper’s Young People.  The most popular magazine at the time was The Century Magazine, where some of Stephen Parrish’s works had been featured.  Maxfield’s father put him in touch with the editor, and commissions quickly followed.  The magazine’s readership hit the ceiling after Parrish’s work began to be featured.  Parrish would also design for The Ladies’ Home Journal, Scribners, Life, Collier’s The National Weekly Magazine, and Hearst.

        In 1898 Maxfield and Lydia Parrish moved to the artists’ haven in Cornish, New Hampshire.  With an advance of $950 from his father, Maxfield bought several acres of land from a local farmer which overlooked the mountains in the area.  He proceeded to build his home, "The Oaks".  That same year, Stephen and Elizabeth Parrish separated.  Elizabeth left for Pasadena, California, to live in a commune and never returned.

        This event had a terrible effect on Maxfield’s physical and mental health.  Soon after, Maxfield contracted tuberculosis and became "fatigued and stressed", suffering a nervous breakdown.  In desperate need of recuperation from these trying events, he would spend a year recovering in a sanatorium in the Saranac Lakes.

        While recovering, Maxfield was offered a commission from The Century to do a "Great Southwest" series.  This allowed him to continue his convalescence in Hot Springs, Arizona, from 1901 to 1902.  Lydia was able to be with him during this time.
Ultimately, Maxfield recovered from his nervous breakdown and came to love the American West.  He used the bright pink and orange sunlit mountains and Arizona’s clear blue sky as inspiration in future works.
 
        The financial strain of his convalescence nearly drove the Parrishes into bankruptcy.  If not for the commission of Kenneth Grahame for Dream Days (1902) they may have lost The Oaks.  Dream Days was the second book Parrish would illustrate for Grahame.  The first was entitled The Golden Age (1899).  In the illustrations for Dream Days, there was a significant thrust towards the romantic realism found in his later works.  Although the illustrations for Dream Days were originally to be printed in color, a new process for black and white pre-empted the color editions.

        The Dream Days illustrations were perhaps his most detailed works to date.  He portrayed royalty, castles, and mystical creatures with great imagination and realism. Parrish’s love of fantasy and beauty shine brightly in these illustrations.
In 1904 Lydia Parrish gave birth to a son, John Dillwyn Parrish (Dillwyn after Parrish’s grandfather).  Maxfield, Jr, was born in 1906, Stephen in 1909, and Jean,  their only girl, in 1911.

        The Parrishes hired tutors after Jean’s birth, and the Parrish children learned music and several academic subjects.
The Oaks was a constant work in progress for the Parrishes.  Originally a humble four-room house, The Oaks would grow to a 15-room estate.  After the birth of Dillwyn, Maxfield would commision his neighbor, George Ruggles, to build a fifteen-room studio about 40 feet from the main house.  Here he could work with complete privacy away from the kids and remain undisturbed by the daily activities of the servants and his wife.

        The studio had three bedrooms, a kitchen, two rooms for painting, two bathrooms, a darkroom, a storage room and a modern machine shop where he would craft frames for his paintings and toys for the children.

        In 1904 under the suggestion of his father, Parrish hired on a young girl of 15 to help Lydia with the care of her infant son, Dillwyn.  The girl was Susan Lewin.  Sue was from Quechee, Vermont.  She came from a working-class family and left high school to become a wage earner at age 14.  Originally, Sue worked for Stephen Parrish.  Maxfield  had met Sue several times while she was employed by his father.

        Sue’s duties at the Parrish household included cooking, cleaning, sewing, and looking after the children.  Maxfield, having a profound appreciation of beauty, immediately began utilizing Sue’s talents as a model, relieving Lydia of the responsibility.  Realizing Sue’s abilities as a seamstress, he began having her put together the many costumes he required for his models.
Despite her bohemian beginnings, Sue carried herself with an air of aristocracy.  This appealed greatly to Parrish.  She had a wondrous naivete and awkward nature which came across wonderfully in the photographs Maxfield had her pose for.  She had the ability to capture the essence of the magical and mystical scenes Parrish concocted.

        Her beauty was classic:  long brunette hair down to her buttocks, the nose of an aristocrat, curious brown eyes, and a perfectly proportioned body.  She also possessed an androgynous quality.  Parrish would use Sue for both male and female characters in his paintings.  She was dynamic symmetry incarnate.

        The first painting Sue would pose for was Land of Make Believe-a prophetic title for a girl who would spend the next 55 years of her life in Parrish’s fabled land.  However, there was no question, she was still an employee.  Sue earned a dollar a day, plus room and board for cooking the meals, caring for the children, and assisting Maxfield.

        Ultimately Sue Lewin became Maxfield’s personal assistant.  When the studio was completed, Maxfield moved himself and Sue out of the main house and into the studio.  Parrish then employed her two sisters:  Annie, who would cook for the Parrishes, and Emily, who would help Sue and Lydia with the children.
Sue did have suitors who would come to court her at the Parrishes home.  However, it became apparent to each of them she had no interest in anything besides caring for Maxfield.
 
        During this time, Parrish’ s commissions soared.  Parrish primarily used Sue Lewin to model for him.  However he did use other models as well.  Often he would call on his daughter, Jean, to pose for a painting when it required a younger girl.  He would also use George Ruggles, the man who built his house, as a model for several paintings.

        One of the most symbolic results of Parrish’s use of Sue was when she modeled for Sleeping Beauty in the same position and style of dress as Leighton had posed Dene seventeen years earlier.

        Princess Parizade Bringing Home the Singing Tree (The Talking Bird), 1906, is a very significant work in Parrish’s repitoire.  Painted originally for Collier’s The National Weekly Magazine and later published in The Arabian Nights:  Their Best-Known Tales edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Smith, this work reflects that which will reappear in Parrish’s later works:  romantic settings and subjects, and idyllic portrayals of women.  There are other elements that Parrish masterfully portrays in his works:  the sky and clouds, mountains,  and bodies of water.  His portrayal of nature and man’s place in it is almost always dramatically congruous and ethereal at the same time.

        Parrish illustrated several other books, Italian Villas and Their Gardens, by Edith Wharton (1904), Poems of Childhood, by Eugene Field (1904), The Arabian Knights, edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith (1909), A Wonderbook of Tanglewood Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1910), A Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics by Francis Turner Palgreave (1911), and his last and most notable, The Knave of Hearts by Louise Saunders (1924).

        The Knave of Hearts included 26 illustrations which took three years to complete.  The Knave Watching Violetta Depart (1924) is perhaps one of the most evocative of the illustrations.  Here you see the Knave cloaked in medieval garb, perched atop a stone wall, a feather in his cap, gazing down toward the kingdom with a look of disbelief.  In the background a dazzling sunlit castle sits on a hill obscured by distance.  Below lies a tiny village of red-roofed dwellings.

        What is thought to be one of his greatest pieces rests in the Curtis Publishing Building in Philadelphia and is entitled, The Dream Garden, 1915.  Parrish collaborated with Louis Comfort Tiffany to produce a spectacular fifteen-by-forty-nine-foot mural of Favrile glass and gold leaf.  The mural depicts its title-its a dream garden only Parrish could dream up.  A veritable paradise hosts a number of overgrown trees, lush shrubbery, and a waterfall backed by pristene mountains.

        Maxfield Parrish experienced enormous success with his designs for candy box covers for Crane’s Chocolates.  Crane offered its customers the right to buy reproductions of Omar Khayyam for ten cents.  The response was overwhelming to both Crane and Parrish.  Crane ordered 2,000 more prints and immediately sold out.  Order forms were placed in every box of Crane’s Chocolates.  Two other successful sellers were Cleopatra and Garden of Allah.  In 1918, Parrish received more than $50,000 in royalties from these three paintings.

        Maxfield saw this as a lucrative venture for him to exploit.  It afforded him relief from the stress and rigor caused by deadlines and over-scheduling.  He had his commission schedule down to a science:  initially he would sell rights to a client under the condition they would only use the painting once, then he would sell the reprint rights for royalties, and ultimately, he would sell the original painting.  In essence, he sold his work three times which was and is a highly unusual practice for an artist.
Perhaps one of his biggest clients would be Edison Mazda Lamp Division of General Electric.  Between 1918 and 1932 Parrish produced an illustration each year for Edison Mazda to use on their calendars.  Edison Mazda and Maxfield Parrish became synonymous.  Some of his most famous pieces came from his work with Edison Mazda:  Solitude, Moonlight, Ecstasy, and Golden Hours to name a few.  In the fourteen-year relationship Parrish had with Edison Mazda, they reproduced Parrish’s work over twenty million times providing some of the most effective advertising of the time.  The company boasted nearly everyone had an Edison Mazda calendar.

        Daybreak (1922) is Parrish’s most famous work.  It was commercially printed by The House of Art and became an instant success.  Daybreak was commissioned by and created exclusively for The House of Art, which had reproduced millions of Parrish’s works. His royalties for Daybreak would exceed $75,000 in 1923 alone.  This is perhaps Parrish’s most imitated work, copied and endlessly referred to in popular culture.  Recently, we have seen Daybreak parodied in the Gary Trudeau comic Doonesbury.  In 1995 singer Michael Jackson brought Daybreak to life again, using the painting’s idyllic setting in his video, You Are Not Alone.  In the video, Jackson and ex-wife Priscilla Presley position themselves on the floor draped in similar garb as in the famous painting.  These are only the most recent examples of the liberal quoting from this work in contemporary culture.
The models for daybreak were Sue Lewin and Parrish’s daughter, Jean.  Sue was the model for the clothed girl lying down; Jean was the curious girl standing nude above her.  In the study for Daybreak, three girls appear where in the actual painting there are only two.  Parrish presents a dreamy palatial setting with two columns at its center.  From the mountainous background delicate sunrays gently caress the girls, peeking between flowering trees and casting light upon the columns.  The effect is breathtaking.
By some accounts, in 1925, one out of every four homes had a copy of Maxfield Parrish’s Daybreak hanging from its walls.  With the exception of Cezanne and Van Gogh, Parrish outsold every other artist of the time.

        In 1931 Parrish decided to make a change in the focus of his work from "girls on rocks" to landscapes.  He would spend the next 30 years painting landscapes.  Some speculated this decision had to do with the aging of his model and muse Sue Lewin.  Parrish simply stated, "I’m done with girls on rocks.  I’ve painted them for thirteen years and I could paint and sell them for thirteen more.  That’s the peril of the art game.  It tempts a man to repeat himself.  It’s an awful thing to get to be a rubber stamp.  I’m quitting my rut now while I’m still able."

        So the subject of his artistic output became landscapes, barns, meadows, mountains, and trees.  These paintings never achieved the acclaim his earlier works realized, but they did sell.  Perhaps it was his ability to capture the human spirit in such an exalted state that enabled Parrish to achieve such success.

        In 1935 Parrish began illustrating calendars with landscape scenes for Brown & Bigelow.  His work became the most popular of Brown & Bigelow’s entire score of calendars.  These works depicted nature in its most exalted state.
Over the years, Parrish’s neglected wife, Lydia, began spending her winters in Georgia, pursuing her interest in chronicling the African-American culture on St. Simons Island.  Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands was published in 1942 featuring a compilation of her works which covered 25 years of research.  She thanked several people in the acknowledgements, but there was no mention of her husband.  She died alone and was buried in Brunswick, Georgia in 1953.
Maxfield Parrish and Sue Lewin would live together until 1960.  Parrish was ninety and Lewin was 71.  Parrish never proposed marriage to Lewin.  She left her land of make believe behind at age 71 and married Earl Colby, a suitor who had courted her when she first began living with the Parrishes.

        After Sue left, Parrish had his will changed, leaving a mere $3,000 to Sue Lewin after his death.  No one knows if he had originally left more or hadn’t included her at all.  Only Parrish knows why he would leave this modest sum to a woman who spent 55 years of her life with him.

        Maxfield’s last work would be entitled Away From It All (1960).  It depicts a small house on a snowy hilltop with one small light burning in the window.  Is it too romantic to wonder whether this was a sign of hope that his beloved muse would return?  After she left, he never painted again.  Maxfield Parrish died at The Oaks on March 30, 1966.  He was 96.  It was a spring day worthy of one of his paintings.  Perhaps it was nature’s way of saying goodbye to a man who so eloquently captured its beauty.

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