33 Facts About Maxfield Parrish

Maxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the 20th century.

Maxfield Parrish is known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery.

Maxfield Parrish's career spanned fifty years and was wildly successful: the National Museum of American Illustration deemed his painting Daybreak to be the most successful art print of the 20th century.

Maxfield Parrish was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to painter and etcher Stephen Parrish and Elizabeth Bancroft.

Maxfield Parrish's given name was Frederick Parrish, but he later adopted Maxfield, his paternal grandmother's maiden name, as his middle, then finally as his professional name.

Maxfield Parrish attended the Haverford School and later studied architecture at Haverford College for two years beginning in 1888.

Maxfield Parrish entered into an artistic career that lasted for more than half a century, and which helped shape the Golden Age of illustration and American visual arts.

Maxfield Parrish did work for other magazines like Scribner's Magazine.

Maxfield Parrish illustrated a children's book in 1897, Mother Goose in Prose written by L Frank Baum.

Maxfield Parrish took many commissions for commercial art until the 1920s.

Books illustrated by Maxfield Parrish are featured in A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales in 1910, The Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics in 1911, and The Knave of Hearts in 1925.

Maxfield Parrish was earning over $100,000 per year by 1910, when homes could be bought for $2,000.

In 1910 Maxfield Parrish received a commission to create 18 panels to go into the Girls Dining Room of the Curtis Publishing Company building, then under construction at 6th and Walnut in Philadelphia.

Maxfield Parrish worked with popular magazines throughout the 1910s and 1920s, including Hearst's and Life.

Maxfield Parrish created advertising for companies like Wanamaker's, Edison-Mazda Lamps, Colgate and Oneida Cutlery.

Maxfield Parrish received a contract to deal with them exclusively for six years.

Maxfield Parrish made his living from posters and calendars featuring his works.

From 1918 to 1934, Maxfield Parrish worked on calendar illustrations for General Electric.

In 1931, Maxfield Parrish declared to the Associated Press, "I'm done with girls on rocks", and opted instead to focus on landscapes.

Maxfield Parrish lived in Plainfield, New Hampshire, near the Cornish Art Colony, and painted until he was 91 years old.

Maxfield Parrish was an avid machinist, and often referred to himself as "a mechanic who loved to paint".

Maxfield Parrish's art is characterized by vibrant colors; the color Maxfield Parrish blue was named after him.

Maxfield Parrish invented a time-consuming process that involved a cobalt blue base and white undercoating, which he then coated with a series of thin alternating coatings of oil and varnish.

Maxfield Parrish would take pictures of models in black and white geometric prints and project the image onto his works.

Maxfield Parrish would create his paintings by taking pictures, enlarging, or projecting objects.

Maxfield Parrish would cut these images out and put them onto his canvas.

In 2001, Maxfield Parrish was featured in a United States Post Office commemorative stamp series honoring American illustrators, including Maxfield Parrish.

The Moody Blues album The Present uses a variation of the Maxfield Parrish painting Daybreak for its cover.

The National Museum of American Illustration claims the largest body of his work in any collection, with sixty-nine works by Maxfield Parrish including the 1910 Curtis Publishing Company's 18 panel mural commission.

In 1898, Maxfield Parrish moved to Cornish, New Hampshire, with his family and built a home that was later nicknamed "The Oaks".

From 1900 to 1902, Maxfield Parrish painted in Saranac Lake, New York, and Castle Hot Springs, Arizona, to further recover his health.

Maxfield Parrish accepted his last commission in the late 1950s.

Maxfield Parrish died on March 30,1966, in Plainfield, New Hampshire, at the age of 95.