Feb 25, 2014 - Sale 2339

Sale 2339 - Lot 34

Price Realized: $ 5,376
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
MAXFIELD PARRISH (1870-1966) THE CENTURY / MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY NUMBER. 1897.
19 1/4x11 3/4 inches, 49x30 cm. Thomas A. Wylie Lithographing Co.
Condition B+: restoration along vertical and horizontal folds; repaired tears at edges; creases through upper left corner. Matted and framed.
Most famous for his children's book illustrations, Parrish was nonetheless a "remarkable draughtsman, who energetically and successfully mixed fantasy and reality to create a luminous dreamworld that, for all its strangeness, is precisely rendered" (Parrish intro). He studied Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and later, at the Drexel Institute under Howard Pyle. His posters were more illustrative and detailed than those of Edward Penfield and Will Bradley, and marked by what Charles Hiatt referred to as "curious individuality." Parrish won second prize in the Century's 1896 poster contest with this entry. He might very well have won first (which went to J.C. Leyendecker), but "entries had been restricted to three colors, and Parrish, an avid experimenter with the new half-tone process, employed five" (Margolin p. 20). Kiehl 134, DFP-I 317, Margolin p. 19 and 51, Maitres pl. 123, Virginia p. 6, Weill 126, Femme 67, Power 182.