Artist: Maxfield Parish
Title: Reveries (American Imagist series)
Size: 26" x 31"
Edition: Limited Edition to 475. Each TruChrome™ fine art print is accompanied by an official Certificate of Authenticity bearing the imprimatur of the National Museum of American Illustration and Quinn Publishing with appropriate signatories denoting it’s number amongst the American Classic Art Collection Museum Series of prints - Shown inset image, right
Medium: TruChrome™ fine art print
About TruChrome™ Editions: After nearly two years of testing and prototyping, Quinn Publishing and its illustrious team has selected a digital manufacturing process and material components which far exceed global standards for the replication of art images. The outcome of this remarkable collaborative effort is a new level of fine art reproduction, known as a TruChrome™ fine art prints-a unique, trademarked process, heralded in the art world as the latest milestone since Glicleé, Iris, silk screening, lithography, and wood block prints.

For every TruChrome™ print, a ph neutral polyester and cotton blended fabric with patented cross-linked gelatin ink receptors upon which large-molecule pigmented, aqueous inks are applied. Both canvas and colored inks are custom fabricated in Harvest Production’s wholly-owned, related laboratories and manufacturing facilities. Afterwards, highly-trained technical artists hand apply specific embellishments for further detail, texture and accuracy, depending upon the art work itself. Lastly, the TruChrome™ prints are coated with a non-yellowing ultra-violet light blocker, specifically designed to not crack over time. Consequently, TruChrome™ longevity is estimated at over 150-200 years and it’s accuracy is indisputable, arguably the best replication of art works ever created world wide.

This most recent innovation in fine art reproduction has been the development of TruChrome™ in collaboration with Quinn Publishing, Harvest Productions and the National Museum of American Illustration (NMAI). This standard represents the very best that global technology has to offer.

TruChrome™ fine art limited edition prints represent the highest quality standard available. The notion of the NMAI in releasing them is to create the most accurate and authentic reproductions of the original works ever made. No effort or cost has been spared in achieving this lofty aim. The incredibly high standard of quality and accuracy in their manufacture, combined with their exclusivity as the only such limited edition fine art prints authorized by the National Museum of American Illustration, make them truly unique and coveted by collectors worldwide. Artist Biography:

As children, none of us can forget the first instance of seeing an art picture or a book illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. Everyone recognizes the magical world woven by Parrish usually with the color lapiz lazuli in its purest form. His signature use of this color was so powerful that a certain cobalt blue has become universally known as ‘Parrish Blue’. His idealized images with figures of feminine pulchritude adorned in classical gowns with backgrounds of electric violets, radiant reds and rich glowing earth tone pigments, created an idyllic world indeed. Other images had scenes embellished with billowing clouds in a fairy tale ambience of maidens and knights lying under porticoes and these were equally harmonic, idealistic, and loved.

Author’s words accompanying such images became superfluous. Yet when those words were read, they were so enhanced by the illustrations that the reader was attracted into the illustrator’s magnetic fantasies. Books illustrated by Parrish no longer belonged to their authors, but rather they became ‘Parrish’ books, just as a generic color became ‘Parrish Blue.’ As a result of this ability to create such a sublime splendor, Maxfield Parrish became unquestionably the most successful and best-known American illustrator of the early part of the twentieth century.

As adults, we long still for such visual images to materialize and we harbor some childish guilt within us for not being able to seek out these scenes of make-believe. Parrish has seized such visions and such images for us - forever. We all thought that his paintings were of real places and that these extraordinary people and fire-breathing dragons actually lived and coexisted peacefully. Their images were too realistic not to be believed. Their stark beauty and superb execution denied us any ability to question their existence. They were photographic, mechanical and above all, technically accurate.

His lush coloristic effects with extraordinary detail and academic perfection were first broadly recognized by the American public in the 1920’s and they rewarded him with an unrivaled national popularity. In 1925, one out of every four households in the United States had a copy of one of his art prints hanging in their living rooms. In a survey taken at that time by a group of art print publishers, findings showed that the three favorite artists were Cezanne, van Gogh, and Parrish.

For 58 years he was married to Lydia, a pretty art instructor who later became one of the first documentors of African-American slave songs of the Deep South. Yet, he also had a beautiful model/mistress and one of the most romantic relationships of the century. For over 55 years, the lovely Susan Lewin was his constant companion. She lived with him in his studio at ‘The Oaks’, his Cornish, New Hampshire estate. It was Susan whom he immortalized in so many of his incredible artworks.

He counted amongst his friends, Woodrow Wilson -28th President of the United States, Walter Lippman -the journalist, Augustus Saint-Gaudens -the sculptor, Frederic Remington -the artist, Winston Churchill -the most popular American novelist of his day (not to be confused with the English statesman), Ethel Barrymore -the legendary actress, and then some local farmers and carpenters like plain old George Ruggles of Plainfield, New Hampshire.



Maxfield Parrish, 1956. Photo by Aubrey Janion In 1960, a few years after the death of Lydia, when he did not marry Susan, she retaliated by marrying a childhood friend. Although 90 years old, Parrish was still painting actively, but upon learning of Susan’s marriage, his hand froze and he never painted again.

He influenced the work of Vasarely, with images bordering on Op Art, Andy Warhol (who collected his work) with repetitive, reproducible Pop Art prototypes, and even the great American illustrator, Norman Rockwell who had said that Parrish was his ‘idol.’ The Realist, Photorealist and Superrealist movements owe their directions to his legacy. He was revered, but nearly forgotten and then rediscovered when he was in his 90’s in 1964.

His life was rich and full and he did not suffer as many other artists have with tortured lives. On the other hand, strange mysteries persisted throughout his life: a father whom he emulated had a broken marriage (unheard of) in the 1890’s, typhoid fever, tuberculosis and a son who later committed suicide. He had an inordinate lover for the business side of his craft, but he rarely spent any money, and it all added up to a movie script life. In fact, he was a Hollywood-handsome man who had stashed his incredible talented self away in the remote hills of New Hampshire and once there, created a make-believe world of his own and never left.

However, the fact remains that very few Parrish’s original paintings have been seen by the contemporary art audiences. The most recent major exhibitions of his work were held in 1961 at a Bennington College exhibit, then in 1964 at the Gallery of Modern Art in New York, again in 1974 at the Brandywine River Museum in a tribute exhibition entitled, "Master of Make Believe." The most recent comprehensive exhibition was in 1989 at the American Illustrators Gallery, the first New York exhibition since his death at the enviable and ripe old age of 95.

After a long and self-satisfied life, this striking and earnest gentleman died on March 30, 1966, at his beloved home and studio, ‘The Oaks’ in Plainfield, New Hampshire. ‘The Oaks’ is in the middle of the artist colony founded by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, his artist father Stephen, and other creative notables of Cornish. The oak trees he loved and photo-realistically portrayed in so many of his paintings, move listlessly outside his home as they had for hundreds of years before and since. His artistic career had ended some six years earlier.

Laurence S. Cutler, AIA RIBA* Holderness, NH

*Co-author with Judy Goffman of Maxfield Parrish, published by Crescent Books and distributed by Outlet Books of Random House, 1993.