MAXFIELD PARRISH (American 1870 - 1966)
At the Close of Day, 1941
Oil on board
15 x 13 in. (sight size - image slightly larger and slightly obscured by the original hand-made frame)
Signed lower right
The magical and transcendental world briefly illuminated during the fleeting twilight minutes of dusk is forever frozen in this richly glazed winter landscape. So celebrated was Parrish's hallmarked treatment of the heavens, writer F. Scott Fitzgerald dropped a knowing reference into one of his novels -- "as blue as a Parrish sky."
When Maxfield Parrish announced to an amazed art world, through an Associated Press statement, that he was "through with figurative work," it served as a personal "Declaration of Independence" from the figure, and a move in a new direction towards what he felt would be a more personal journey -- the fine art of landscape painting.
Alma M. Gilbert, in her indispensable monograph, Maxfield Parrish Master of Make Believe, cites a familial factor in this decision when she writes, "It is also evident that Parrish was acutely aware that his family, particularly his daughter Jean, whom he adored, described him as 'just an illustrator, not a real artist like my grandpa, Stephen Parrish.'"
In 1936 Parrish entered into a 27-year arrangement with the Minnesota-based calendar company Brown and Bigelow to produce a series of landscape scenes. For five years he produced one landscape a year. After that, he created two, both a summer and a winter landscape, for another 22 years.
In her book, Alma M. Gilbert has singled out this particular piece (which Brown and Bigelow renamed At the Close of Day from the original Plainfield, New Hampshire Village Church at Dusk) as an "exemplary published landscape that speaks to Parrish's love of his immediate surroundings."
This painting, also known with the alternate titles, Village Street and Winter was reproduced on pages 6 and 108 of Maxfield Parrish Master of Make-Believe by Alma M. Gilbert, Komecky & Komecky, 2005.
PROVENANCE:
Vose Galleries of Boston, Boston Massachusetts
Mr. Gerhard Willemy Keny, Columbus, Ohio (from 1984)
EXHIBITED:
Brandywine River Museum, Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, 1974 and 1984
Cornish Colony Museum, Winsor, Vermont, 2004 and 2006
Trust For Museum Exhibitions, Washington D.C., 2005
LITERATURE:
Alma M. Gilbert, Maxfield Parrish Master of Make-Believe, Komecky & Komecky, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, 2005, pages 6 and 108.
Condition Report: This piece has been framed to an overall size of 18.25 x 16.75 in., and the art is in Excellent condition, and retains its exhibition labels on the back of the piece.
Shipping: Framed - without Glass, Small (view shipping information)
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