The National Museum of American Illustration
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MAXFIELD PARRISH "DAYBREAK" 1922, oil on board
Maxfield Parrish’s Masterpiece DAYBREAK at National Museum
of American Illustration
The National Museum of American Illustration announces
today that Maxfield Parrish’s record-setting masterpiece,
DAYBREAK, will be on loan to the Museum this summer for a
period of seven weeks. This announcement comes on the
heels of DAYBREAK’S May 25, 2006 auction at Christie’s, in
which its sale set a new record for a work by Maxfield
Parrish of $7.6 million dollars. Now privately owned, the loan
of DAYBREAK to the NMAI presents the only opportunity
available to the public to view this masterpiece before it
enters a closed collection. DAYBREAK will be on exhibit July
12 - August 25, 2006. To celebrate this milestone exhibit, the
NMAI will offer special weekends of general admissions in
addition to our daily guided tours available by reservation
Mondays through Fridays.
“The recent results of America illustrators at auctions this
spring has confirmed their importance in American art.
Works by Maxfield Parrish and Norman Rockwell set new
records at auction, indicating the current level of respect and
appreciation for these artists, and this genre, today,”
explains
the Museum’s Director and Co-Founder, Judy Goffman Cutler.
“Although the loan of DAYBREAK was arranged with little
advance notice, we are thrilled beyond belief to offer to the
public the only opportunity to view this work. DAYBREAK has
been privately held since 1922 and only rarely exhibited to
the public in the last 80 years. In conjunction with DAYBREAK,
we have arranged the loan of other significant works by
Parrish- MY DUTY TOWARDS MY NEIGHBOR/ MY DUTY
TOWARDS GOD, DREAM GARDEN and PRESENTATION PIECE
FOR THE FLORENTINE FETE 'A Call To Joy'. Like DAYBREAK,
MY DUTY TOWARDS MY NEIGHBOR/ MY DUTY TOWARDS GOD
is also entering a private collection after being exhibited at
the NMAI.”
In 1922, Maxfield Parrish produced DAYBREAK, which he
referred to as ‘the great painting’. Distributed as an art print
through the House of Art, DAYBREAK became the most
successful art print of the last century and secured Parrish’s
position as the most popular illustrator after the First World
War. In composition it resembles a stage set, which is
appropriate, since Parrish loved the theatre and had designed
a number of sets for masques in Cornish, New Hampshire as
well as for Shakespeare’s The Tempest. It was laid out
according to dynamic symmetry
using photographs of Kitty Owen, his daughter Jean and
Susan Lewin as models, posed amidst a backdrop of
architectural elements, columns, urns, and fantastical
landscape. The print was the sensation of the 1920's and was
displayed in one of every four American homes. It is said to
be the most reproduced art image in history, surpassing THE
LAST SUPPER and Andy Warhol's soup cans. Academy award
winning entertainer and NMAI Advisory Board member,
Whoopi Goldberg, is loaning the study for DAYBREAK to
accompany the final work for this exhibition. This is possibly
the only time since its creation that the study will be shown
next to the finished work.
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MAXFIELD PARRISH (1870-1966) "MY DUTY TOWARDS MY
NEIGHBOR/ MY DUTY TOWARDS GOD"
1898, oil on canvas/ oil on panel, frame: oak and white pine
MY DUTY TOWARDS MY NEIGHBOR/ MY DUTY TOWARDS GOD
was created in 1898 for the Mrs. Parsons Memorial Chapel at
the Trinity Episcopal Church in Lenox, MA. The artwork
remained in the church until its sale to a private collector in
early June, and has never before been publicly exhibited. At
the church, in its position above the fireplace as placed by
Parrish’s hands, it was rarely seen by visitors, as the chapel
was later converted to a nursery school. Art historian Coy
Ludwig said of these small murals, executed on pine boards,
that they ‘have the interesting Pre-Raphaelite quality
sometimes seen in the products of the Arts and Crafts
Movement in America.’ There is no doubt that the faces and
costumes are reminiscent of Rosetti and Waterhouse. The
frame, with its design, colors and lettering, all executed by
the artist, is also derivative of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Parrish obviously felt that such a commission deserved the
full treatment, and that if he had left the framing up to the
congregation he would have lost control of the total effect he
wished to create. As a complete object, it stands as a
testament to the artist’s many talents and vision. It is his
only diptych and truly is unique amongst his oeuvre.
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MAXFIELD PARRISH (1870-1966) "DREAM GARDEN"
1914, oil on panel
Also on loan to the NMAI is Parrish’s DREAM GARDEN, the
maquette from which his stunning DREAM GARDEN mural at
the Curtis Publishing Company building was fashioned. In the
only collaboration of his artistic career, Parrish’s 2ft 1 1/2in
x 6ft 6in DREAM GARDEN was enlarged and translated into a
15ft x 49ft favrille glass mosaic by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
Installed in the Curtis lobby in 1915, the mosaic was hailed at
the time as ‘a veritable masterpiece’. This painting is a
wonderful complement to the FLORENTINE FETE murals
exhibited at the National Museum of American Illustration,
which, like DREAM GARDEN, were commissioned for the
Curtis Publishing Company building in Philadelphia. The loan
of this study allows further insight to Parrish’s mural work
from this period. Additionally, at Vernon Court, home of the
Museum, murals by Tiffany Studios (1898) grace both
loggias, allowing the visitor to compare and contrast the
decorative work of Parrish with that of Tiffany. The Tiffany
murals at Vernon Court are among the few surviving
examples of Tiffany’s decorative murals on view today.
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MAXFIELD PARRISH (1870-1966) "PRESENTATION PIECE FOR
THE FLORENTINE FETE -A Call to Joy"
1910, oil on stretched canvas
As a complement to the FLORENTINE FETE murals by Maxfield
Parrish installed at the Museum, we are pleased to have on
exhibit the PRESENTATION PIECE FOR THE FLORENTINE FETE
'A Call To Joy'. This smaller artwork (53 1/2" x 20 1/2") was
created to convince the Curtis Publishing Company to
commission Parrish for the 18 panels that make up A
FLORENTINE FETE. “As often as possible, we try to display
preparatory works or studies next to the finished artwork, to
show the artist’s process. Having the concept piece for A
FLORENTINE FETE on loan this summer affords such
comparisons, which we are pleased to be able to offer”, Judy
Cutler, Museum Director explains. Created between 1910 and
1916 for the girls’ dining room at the publishing house, the
murals were widely reproduced throughout the years,
including use as art prints and on the cover of the first
women’s magazine, the Ladies Home Journal. The murals
became most beloved by the public in the process, and in
1917 the hall in which they were exhibited became known as
the Maxfield Parrish Dining Room, ‘the most beautiful dining
room in America’. A FLORENTINE FETE, Parrish’s largest, and
arguably greatest, work, is on permanent display at the
NMAI.
To celebrate this extraordinary loan, two special weekends of
general admissions for self-guided tours are now offered:
July 22 & 23, and August 19 & 20, open each day 10:00 am-
3:00 pm. Additionally, the Museum is open for guided tours
by advance reservation, Mondays through Fridays, May 30-
November 3. Groups tours (15 or more persons) are
welcome by advance reservation year-round. Tickets $25:
Seniors 60+ and military w/id, $22, Children 12 & under not
admitted. For more information telephone 401-851-8949 ext.
18 or www.americanillustration.org
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Molly K. Dickinson,
Director of Institutional Development,
The National Museum of American Illustration-
492 Bellevue Avenue,
Newport, RI 02840
T: 401-851-8949 ext.18
F: 401-851-8974
mdickinson@americanillustration.org
www.americanillustration.org
The National Museum of American Illustration is a nonprofit
independent, educational, and aesthetic organization. It is
located in Newport, RI on Bellevue Avenue at Vernon Court
(1898), a Beaux-Arts adaptation of an 18th century French
chateau.
It is the first national museum devoted exclusively to
American illustration art.
Illustration consists of original artwork created to be
reproduced in books, magazines, newspapers and
advertisements. ‘Golden Age’ paintings by such luminaries as
Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, NC Wyeth, and 75 others
are displayed in ‘Gilded Age’ architecture, creating a unique
union of art and architecture- a national treasure.
The Museum is administered by the American Civilization
Foundation, a nonprofit organization with the goal to present
the best possible venue for appreciating the greatest
collection of illustration art; the most American of American
art.
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©2005 National Museum of American Illustration
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