Maxfield Parrish: The Advertisements, the Art Prints, the Book Illustrations, the Magazine Covers [Hardcover]

Michael J. Goldberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1998

Breaking the boundaries of commercialism and intent on inventing a surrealistic style, he successfully captured the dreamer in all of us. Present throughout the series is the artist's passionate color, allegorical settings, and eye for architecture.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

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, Cézanne 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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

Maxfield Parrish (American, 1870-1966), enjoyed a popularity unmatched in the twentieth-century art world. His art prints had an enormous impact on popular American culture, appearing in one out of four households. His images were reproduced everywhere--as illustrations in children's books and in such leading periodicals as Scribner's Magazine, Ladies' Home Journal, Hearst's Magazine, and Harper's Weekly; as advertisements for everything from bicycles to Jello (tm) and tires to chocolates; as greeting cards; as calendars for, among others, General Electric Edison Mazda Lamps for almost two decades; even as menus and toys. His most successful paintings feature beautiful women posed thoughtfully against dramatic landscapes, and they remain even today among the best-loved works of any American artist. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Amer Historic Inns; Limited edition (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888054239
• ISBN-13: 978-1888054231
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 6 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #874,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great gift idea, August 8, 1999

By 

Angel Lee "Liocorno Amethyst Moonstone" (Cleveland, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Maxfield Parrish: The Advertisements, the Art Prints, the Book Illustrations, the Magazine Covers (Hardcover)

This is a delightful collection of Maxfield Parrish's art, presented in 4 small, elegant volumes. Each book covers a different category of Parrish's work including ads, book & magazine covers, and fine art prints.

The most popular paintings are here as expected, along with many seldom seen pieces. There is also a very insightful text that chronicles Parrish's life, career and inspirations, and how the various paintings came about.

I especially enjoyed the book illustrations with mythological characters, genies & dragons, and fantastic landscapes. Another favorite is the advertisements, with 10 Edison Mazda lamp ads among many others.

These quality books with vibrant color illustrations on fine paper would make a great gift for any Parrish enthusiast.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Parrish 'Buy", December 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Maxfield Parrish (Treasures of Art) (Hardcover)

Of all the books on Parrish, these authors are the most responsible in the history of the artist, in their analysis of the art works, and their research of the genre!! The illustrations are directly from the original paintings and glow as do the originals themselves.

Who can go wrong at $9.99 with such printing quality as this hardback?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very brief, and mostly for the completist, June 11, 2005

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Maxfield Parrish (Treasures of Art) (Hardcover)

The Cutlers have put together a very attractive book. It's well printed, and it's Parrish artwork - of course it's attractive.

The text tends towards the dry, I'm afraid. It says much about the few generations of ancestors the led up to Maxfield himself, and offer a vast wealth of minutiae about Parrish's life. Did you know that one of his neighbors was a best-selling author during early decades of the 1900s? Wow. Lots of the text isn't nearly that thrilling.

The pictures, though, are beautiful. They make the most of Parrish's brilliant sense of light, landscape, and romantic vision. There are works here that haven't often been shown before, especially from his later landscape ouvre. The cynic might say "OK, It's a girl on a rock, without the girl." Parrish said so himself, though not quite in those words. Whatever you might say, these pictures are excellent craft: evocative, well put together, even appealing to people that "don't like art."

It's a pleasant, but not earth-shaking contribution to the Parrish collection. Enjoy the pictures, even if they're not all like his younger and more familiar work. Skip the text, unless your interests are very academic.

//wiredweird