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Maxfield Parrish Illustrated Letters to
Henry Bancroft A Finding Aid to the Maxfield Parrish Illustrated
Letters to Henry Bancroft Wilmington, Delaware Accessioned: Gift
of Mary Bancroft, 1951 Helen Farr Sloan Library
TABLE OF CONTENTS Biography of Maxfield Parrish Maxfield Parrish was born into an old Quaker family on
July 25, 1870, in Philadelphia. His parents named their son Frederick;
he later adopted Maxfield, a family name, as his middle name. Parrish
grew up in a cultured environment. He spent two years, 1884-86, in Europe
with his parents. During the winter of 1884 he attended classes at Dr.
Kornemann's school in Paris. Parrish continued his education at Haverford
College and was graduated from there in 1892. That summer and the next,
he spent in Annisquam, Massachusetts, where his father continued to instruct
him in art. From 1892 to 1894, Parrish took classes at the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts under Robert W. Vonnoh and Thomas P. Anshutz. In 1898, Maxfield and Lydia Parrish established a permanent
home in Cornish, New Hampshire, where they built their famous house and
studio at "The Oaks." Parrish was stricken with tuberculosis
in 1900 and spent his convalescence at Saranac Lake, New York, and at
Hot Springs, Arizona, until April 1902. During his convalescence he continued
to paint and in 1903 spent three months on a working trip to Italy and
France. Parrish's early works were marked by the use of gnome-like characters in medieval costumes. His compositions were densely packed, with castles and walled towers filling background areas. At the height of his popularity, he concentrated on romantic themes that combined medieval and classical elements. By 1931, he had tired of themes of young maidens surrounded by rocks, trees, and water, and from then on his works were landscapes of rural scenes used mostly for calendar and greeting card illustration. Parrish was a prolific illustrator, whose work appeared in Collier's, Scribner's, Book Buyer, Harper's Weekly, Life, and Ladies' Home Journal. He also illustrated books and advertisements as well as created posters and murals. He was the popular artist of post-World War I: literally millions of prints of his paintings Daybreak and Garden of Allah were manufactured. Parrish's work was neglected from the mid-thirties until the mid-sixties, when it was "rediscovered" and acclaimed; he lived to see a revival in the popularity of his paintings and drawings By Penelope B. Cope Sources: Taken from Elzea, Rowland and Elizabeth H. Hawkes, eds. A Small School of Art: The Students of Howard Pyle. Wilmington: Delaware Art Museum, 1980. Stuart, John Goodspeed. Young Maxfield Parrish: His Early Illustrated Letters and Sketches. Aurora, CO: T.H. Pickens Technical Center, 1992. SCOPE AND CONTENTS NOTE OF THE LETTERS The collection contains 53 letters and postcards written by Maxfield Parrish to his cousin, Henry Bancroft, mostly during his travels in Europe. Folder - Contents 1 - 12 un-illustrated letters, 1902-1909 © Delaware Art Museum |