Book Description

Now in its third edition, THE MASTERWORKS stands as the authoritative collection of Parrish’s best works. Compiled by long-time Parrish expert and curator Alma Gilbert, THE MASTERWORKS brings together the most popular, most important, and most fanciful of Parrish’s paintings. Here you’ll find the glorious Dinkey Bird, the extensive Florentine Fete murals, the amazing Interlude, and the sublime Daybreak, which sold for a record $4.25 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 1996. Also included are some of Parrish’s lesser-known works, through which we see the development of the artist’s style and technique. Through historical analysis, contemporary news clippings, and letters from the artist himself, we get to know the genius behind the artwork. Updated with all the current Parrish scholarship, this new edition of THE MASTERWORKS continues the grand tradition of celebrating Parrish’s work and bringing his oeuvre to the public. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Excellent for every Parrish fan!
I bought this book and I never regret of getting another Parrish art book again. This artbook is excellent with deep details of Parrish's way of study through his paintings. Theories based on his view of perspective and composition, it is something great to read about! However, one little thing I personally find missing is the "Dream Days" series, that is missing from this artbook and should have been included. Otherwise, get the book and you'll fall in love with Parrish blue all over again.

Perfect for Parrish fans!
This book is excellent! It has one of the best Maxfield Parrish selected works. A lot of prints and images for you to be inspired all over again. It also contains pages of great readings, such as a section about Parrish's perspective theory and theory. It also show close-ups of Parrish's studies. It is a great read! However, the only thing disappoints me is the absence of the "Dream Days" series. Other than that, get it and you won't regret it!

My Favorite Coffee Table Book
Fabulous retrospective of Maxfield Parrish's finest work. The illustrations are superb. This book is expensive, but worth the money. If you're looking for a price guide, I suggest Erwin Flack's book. -- James Halperin, sf novelist and Parrish fanatic. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Maxfield Parrish, the prodigiously gifted, turn-of-the-20th-century illustrator famous for his limpid blue landscapes and dreamy pubescent models draped in gossamer threads, has rolled in and out of artistic favor for nearly a century. In 1964, critic Lawrence Alloway wrote about Parrish's odd place in the history of American art: "He was the most popular artist the country ever produced, with prints in a quarter of all American homes at one time; and yet his kitschy compositions were considered risible among the educated art elite." Parrish himself had a sophisticated sense of his own place in the pantheon: "There are countless artists whose shoes I am not worthy to polish whose prints would not pay the printer," he wrote. "The question of judgement is a puzzling one." But new movements of the 1960s, including photo-realism and pop art, led to critical reappraisal of Parrish's oeuvre, and a few of the later new image painters, such as Joan Nelson, found sweet inspiration in his atmospheric skies and evocative, shadowy forests.

Parrish is finally receiving his due with this truly intelligent, fascinating book. It is the catalog to a traveling exhibition organized by the author, Sylvia Yount, the curator of collections at the Museum of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia--Parrish's alma mater and hometown, respectively. With Mark F. Bockrather, a conservator who elucidates Parrish's formidable craftsmanship, Yount has done a fine job of resurrecting Parrish yet again. She offers a sensitive analysis of the place his pastoral, idyllic, storybook innocence played in a world that Freud, the Great War, the Depression, and yet another world war inexorably tore to shreds. --Peggy Moorman ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Beautiful work and nicely presented
For a century, illustrators have been looked down upon by "fine artists." Finally, Maxfield Parrish, a truely FINE artist, gets his day. He's represented not as an illustrator, but as an artist. Having seen the originals 20 minutes prior to buying the book, I can say with confidence that the reproductions are the truest I have ever seen. A great in the art world (Daybreak was estimated to be in 25% of all American homes), the book is the best look back at an American great.

Good mid- price Parrish book
This is a good entry point into the world of Maxfield Parrish for the budget conscious. It provides the usual essay on the artist's life. What I found really useful was a description of his techniques in the fourth section.It includes infrared and microscopic cross section analysis of his canvasses. If you are looking for an even more economical book on Parrish, try Maxfield Parrish by Laurence and Judy Cutler by Gramercy books also published in 1999. It always intrigues me that published reproductions of his works always 'color' differently from book to book. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Incredible if you want to see the master works!
A definite must if you want to be inspired ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Beautiful Pictures, But Weak Text
Any book containing attractive reproductions of Maxfield Parrish's work is bound to be visually stunning. But the text is loaded with partially informed speculation about the relationship between Parrish and Sue Lewin, his favorite model. The author is an art dealer, not a historian, and her lack of analytical training is a serious problem. Maybe Lewin was Parrish's lover. But where's the concrete evidence? Everything that the author presents to support her contentions is either hearsay or capable of more than one interpretion. The fact that they shared a house for several decades is a VERY persuasive fact, but Gilbert damages her credibility -- and her case -- by tossing in too much pointless guessing.

A Fascinating Look into the Life of an Artist & his Subject
Being an admirer of Parrish's work since childhood, I had always wondered how he worked since his paintings had a sort of surreal realism to them. I was surprised to find that he utilized photographs instead of live models and that Sue Lewin was the model for the majority of his most famous works. The art is not only beautiful in the book, but the photos are just as incredible as the paintings themselves. A must have book for anyone who has admired Maxfield Parrish's work.

This book is a fun, light, easy read.
This book is full of conjecture about Maxfield Parrish's private life and his relationship with his model, Sue Lewin. Their relationship was kept very private (due to his married state), yet they lived together most of their lives. Despite the guessing (most of which is probably correct) on the author's part, it is a fun, easy book to read and gives a sense of the times.

Fantastic
This is a fantastic book. It covers Parrish's art, life, and process in a very reader friendly form. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A superbly presented and informative art history.
Many books have profiled Parrish's art; Maxfield Parrish and the Illustrators of the Golden Age reproduces 70 works of Parrish and other illustrators of his times, using the archives of the Americana Illustrators Gallery and other resources to present works by a range of painters. Chapters provide plenty of text history of the works of these illustrators and their related styles. Highly recommended, this goes beyond most singular Parrish focuses.

A clear window on the golden age of magazine illustration
In concise but informative prose, Margaret Wagner illuminatesnot just the work of the timelessly popular Maxfield Parrish, but sheplaces him firmly within the context of his time. Ms. Wagner accomplishes this by introducing readers to some of Parrish's lesser known contemporaries (though the book has a rich selection of his work too) and by not falling prey to histrionically trumpeting his "greatness." Parrish's fans might even learn something from this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Posters suitable for framing from the major periods of an artist known for his luminous colors, nymphlike forms, and the romance, flamboyance, and sensuality of his work. 24 posters in full color. ... Read more

Book Description

Maxfield Parrish is one of America's greatest twentieth-century illustrators. Parrish's works combine romanticism, stunning colors, dramatic lighting, and classical costumes to create images that seem to generate a light of their own, reflecting off each page, and the result is a feeling of warmth and exuberance. Here, in this spectacular horizontal calendar, his images are stunningly reproduced along with devoted curator and biographer Alma Gilbert's insights into his celebrated career.

... Read more

Book Description

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. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Unfortunately, not well done!
I personally found the book to be a big disappointment...both in quality of content as well as knowledge of subject matter.

There are too many similarities to other published works to suit me.

Best Parrish 'Buy"
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? ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Is this book about MP's work or Alma Gilbert World?
If I could have found a copy of this book to preview before ordering I never would have bought this book. Far, far too many pages and current photos devoted to the landscape surrounding his home. And as I said before, Is this book about the landscape paintings of Maxfield Parrish or is it about Alma Gilbert and her ties to his life? This book was a disappointment to me.

Wonderful book with rarely seen landscapes
Some of Maxfield Parrish's least known but most vibrantly beautiful works are the landscapes featured in this book. Here is his ultimate mastery of light and color.

Although commercial illustration built his fame and fortune, Parrish's true love was landscape painting. Many excerpts from his correspondence attest to this fact and provide a remarkable glimpse into the background of the artist.

There are several pages of photos of Parrish's estate, "The Oaks", which provided the inspiration for many of his works. Now owned by the author, it is evident how these magnificent grounds are reflected in the paintings.

The book concludes with 34 full page color plates of landscape paintings produced for the Brown & Bigelow Co. from 1936-1963. Having been a Parrish fan for years, I found several new favorites here. ... Read more

Book Description

Very few songs have taken hold of our hearts and imaginations the way "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz has. These lyrics, so evocative of light and color, have found their perfect match in the paintings of Maxfield Parrish.His works seem to reflect of the words on each page, and the result is a feeling of warmth, exuberance, and limitless possibilities. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Over the Rainbow: a beautiful book
The timeless lyrics to "Over the Rainbow" are brought to life in this dreamily illustrated book. Each picture is done in soft, muted colors...the overall effect is dreamy. This book would make an excellent present for anyone, young or old. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (1)

master of his feild
this book is wonderful. it makes me want to read the book because this book is just the illustrations. But it is well worth your money if you enjoy maxfeilds work. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

If you love M. Parrish....!
...you will ADORE this book. The pop-ups are fantastical, with rich vibrant colors, no detail is spared. One of the few "ART" books that truly deserves the name. This is a "Must Have" for every Parrish fan. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Great way to decorate on a budget
I just love the beautiful paintings of Maxfiled Parish and have wanted to place his works around my home for a long time. However, being on a tight budget makes this difficlut....at least it did until I got this book of posters.While the prints aren't as large as I would idealy purchace, the quality and quantity for the price can't be beat.This is a good, inexpensive way to get good-quality art onto your walls even on a pin-up poster budget.

I agree...
I was hesitant to purchase a book of prints without being able to see it first, but what a great purchase it turned out to be.I would recommend this to any Parrish fan.

My review is extremely favorable, and I mean every word.
This book is tastefully constructed, and the quality of the prints is impressive.Aside from the amazingly coloured and detailed prints, a shortbiography is included for those newly aquainted with the artist.It is anexcellent buy, not only for the purpose of economy, but with considerationto some of the lesser-known works.It is incredibly rare to see so manyprints in one place.Anyone who has this collection can tell you that youwill never regret buying it, and for that price you simply can't afford topass it up. ... Read more

Book Description

This brand new 3rd edition of our best-selling Maxfield Parrish Price Guide just got better.Last publsihed in 1995, this completely overhauled and updated edition has valuable new pricing information along with newly photographed images for positive identification.This book also contains images and information found in no other book, making it THE reference for Maxfield Parrish collectors, dealers, and appraisers worldwide. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Advice From a Parrish Fanatic
Incredibly useful. I believe Flacks has written the most accurate and convenient pricing guide available for Maxfield Parrish collectors and anyone else who wants to figure out what a Parrish item is worth. If you're looking for a great coffee table book, I suggest Alma Gilbert's The Masterworks. -- James Halperin, sf novelist (The Truth Machine & The First Immortal) and Parrish collector. ... Read more