Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) was one of the most successful American artists of his generation.
As an illustrator, Parrish worked across adult and juvenile markets, and across magazine and book illustration. He became the most highly paid illustrator in the United States.
Parrish, perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, adapted his working methods to the scientific principles of photoreproduction. His work in black and white was often a form of collage in which he drew the outlines and other details in india ink, modeled the forms (sometimes cut out of paper for sharpness) with lithographic crayon, and pasted on different prepared patterned cardboard for texture and contrast. For his brilliant color effects, Parrish applied flat, thin, transparent oil glazes of pure color that could easily be broken down into its basic components within the camera. Consequently, almost none of his clear, brilliant hues were lost in reproduction.
(Michael Patrick Hearn, Trinkett Clark, and H. Nichols B. Clark, Myth, Magic, and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American Children's Book Illustration (Boulder, CO: Roberts Rinehart; Norfolk, VA: The Chrysler Museum of Art, 1996), 26)
Parrish's illustration of Count Reynaurd and his page Pierrot was first commissioned by the popular children's magazine St. Nicholas before appearing as the frontispiece to Evaleen Stein's Troubadour Tales in 1903.
View other children's books illustrated by Maxfield Parrish:
Baum, L. Frank. Mother Goose in Prose. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1905. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.
Field, Eugene. Poems of Childhood. New York: Scribner, 1904. Courtesy of HathiTrust.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys. New York: Duffield & Company, 1910. Courtesy of HathiTrust.
Wiggin, Kate Douglas, and Nora A. Smith, eds. The Arabian Nights: Their Best-Known Tales. New York: Scribner, 1909. Courtesy of HathiTrust.
