Maxfield Parrish

Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) has long been considered one of the greatest American illustrators of the 20th century and lived and worked throughout his career in Cornish Hills, New Hampshire. In early 1920’s when his works “Garden of Allah “and “Daybreak” were reproduced as art prints, he quickly became one of the best known artists in America. His unmistakable paintings–characterized by ‘Parrish Blue’ water and skies, luminescent rocks and hills, and exquisite young women draped in flowing, classically inspired garments–are infused with a romantic Eden-like quality so entrancing that today’s reproductions elicit the same infectious enthusiasm as when the prints first appeared.
In the 1920’s, one out of four American homes had his world of make-believe hanging on their walls. A survey taken in 1925 in America showed that Van Gogh, Cezanne and Parrish were thought to be the three greatest artists of all time and Parrish’s art images on posters, calendars, magazine covers, and book illustrations have made his name a household word thereafter.
Today, Parrish’s art works are in the collections of many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, and his work is once again experiencing an enthusiastic revival. Parrish’s painting “Daybreak,” one of the most reproduced art images in history, recently sold for $4.3 million, setting a record price for an illustration and Parrish art prints rank among the most popular in the world and are distributed in 42 countries. The Image Exchange on America Online reported in January, 1997 that as many as 4,800 people accessed the Maxfield Parrish exhibition on the Internet in a single day.