I bought this book at ABC Books in 2022, and I paid $7.95 for it. Clearly, I was jonesing for some art books to browse during football games, as I was watching a lot of them back in those days. As it stands, though, this weekend’s two football game Sunday is probably an abberation in my current watching habits, but it did give me a chance to pad the annual reading statistics.
This is a large oversized coffee table book about an artist and illustrator who was most active during the early decades of the 20th century. Fred Maxfield Parrish was the son of an etcher/engraver/artist and was brought up in those circles. He had talent of his own and absolutely was in the right place and the right time. Whereas his father might have still been working on the Currier and Ives paradigm, but changes in printing technology allowed color, and the need for color illustrations for magazines exploded, and Parrish was right there to take advantage of it. He became a known name in the industry and by the public, and he got certain concessions in his contracts: The magazine could run the illustration one time, and he would then have reprint rights and he could sell the original. So he was making bank until radio and television came along and the long decline of magazines began, at which point he turned to watercolors for a couple of decades in retirement.
A good story, and as for the art–well, definitely what would come to be known as middlebrow stuff. Linear colored illustrations with some depth and thought behind them–he studied architecture and worked extensively to block his works to use the Golden Ratio. Better than the “high” art you get now, but they’re illustrations and prints, so more like watercolors than oil paintings.
Still, an enjoyable book and perhaps leading to some understanding about the business of mass art transitioning from the 19th into the 20th centuries. But it’s not like I’ll be able to use that in conversation as my cats have heard it all before.
