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Antiques and The Arts Weekly — April 27, 2012
Parrish Exhibition Opens At NMAI
the 1950s. This exhibition shows all aspects
of this multi-talented illustrator’s career
including a rare three-dimensional mixedmedia
mailbox, titled “Belles Lettres,” its
inaugural exhibition.
Maxfield Parrish’s astonishing Florentine
Fete murals (1910–1916) were painted for
the girls’ dining room at the Curtis Publishing
Company in Philadelphia. A monumental
part of NMAI’s permanent collection,
they appear as if created for Vernon Court. A
keen-eyed viewer easily notices Parrish’s
favorite model, his mistress Susan Lewin, for
she appears 166 times in the murals. Parrish
himself appears ten times, while an aunt and
neighbor each appear once. Lewin is shown
as male and female, albeit with different
stances, hairstyles and costumes.
Parrish was best known for romantic images
with an unmatched richness, captured by his
uncanny use of color incorporating ultra-saturated
hues and often times an intense cobalt
blue. Windsor & Newton Paint Company
honored the artist by renaming their radiant
cobalt Parrish Blue.
His paintings were created in alternating
layers of single colors with transparent varnish
in between, applied over a monochromatic
underpainting. While this technique
was superb for period reproductions using
early four-color printing (which his technique
closely resembled), the resulting luminosity
of the originals must be seen in person
to be fully appreciated. Everyone marvels at
his actual paintings while recognizing that his
works are the most reproduced art images in
history. In 1922, it was said that one in four
American households had a Parrish art print
hanging.
Due to popular demand, NMAI will continue
to exhibit highlights from the incredibly
successful Norman Rockwell: American
Imagist traveling exhibition, recently
acclaimed in England by Paul Johnson as “the
best art exhibition in London for 2011.”
That exhibition will further tour in September
to Alabama’s Birmingham Museum of
Art. NMAI will also continue to highlight
works from the first museum exhibition of
illustrations by author Tom Wolfe, “In Our
Time,” comprising works from his book of
THE GALLERY — 13
the same title satirizing 1970s American culture.
For more information, call 401-851-8949
ext 18 or email art@americanillustration.org.
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William N. Bartholomew (1822-1898)
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John Whorf (1903-1959)
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Stanislas Lepine (1835-1892)
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Aldro T. Hibbard (1886-1972)
Oil on Board, 20” x 16”
Maxfield Parrish (1870–1966), “Venetian Lamplighters,”1922,
oil on panel, 28¾ by 18¾ inches; initialed
lower right.
This is the inaugural exhibition for Parrish’s 1934
“Belle Lettres,” an oil on panel with wooden box assemblage
that measures 19 by 13 1 /8 inches.
Paul Sample (1896-1974)
Oil on Canvas, 20” x 30”
Constantine Kluge (1912-2003)
Oil on Canvas, 32” x 32”
Art &Antique Gallery, Inc.
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