Maxfield Parrish has long been considered one of the greatest American illustrators of the twentieth century. In the early 1920s, when his works Garden of Allah and Daybreak were reproduced as art prints, he quickly became one of the best known and most beloved artists America had known and most beloved artists America had known or would ever know. His unmistakable paintings - characterized by "Parrish blue" water and skies, luminescent rocks and hills, and perfect-looking young women draped in flowing, classically inspired garments - are infused with a romantic and paradisiacal quality so entrancing that today's reproductions of them elicit the same infectious enthusiasm as when the first prints were released over seventy years ago. Until Judy Goffman Cutler, coauthor of this book, curated the international exhibit "Maxfield Parrish: A Retrospective," Parrish's paintings had rarely been shown as a group of fine art pieces, and because of this Parrish had been considered by critics to be "merely" an illustrator. The exhibition and this book serve to change that impression, with a presentation of paintings and drawings that embody the artist's long career and extraordinary accomplishments. Many of the artworks that appear in Maxfield Parrish: A Retrospective, have never been reproduced before. Other plates are especially significant because they reproduce for the first time the original painting - rather than prints made from them. Included are over 130 color plates and more than thirty black-and-white illustrations and historical photographs, along with an essay from Joanna Maxfield Parrish, the artist's granddaughter, and text by Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler of the American Illustrators Gallery in New York City. Maxfield Parrish is one of America's greatest cultural treasures. Maxfield Parrish: A Retrospective, published in honor of the 125th anniversary of his birth, places his magnificent body of work in just that context. -- from dust jacket.
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