Maxfield Parrish ~ 'The Art of the Print' at The Everson Museum

Written by Sarah Massett Thursday, 01 December 2011 21:21

SYRACUSE, NY.- The Everson Museum of Art presents the long awaited exhibition, Fantasies and Fairy-Tales: Maxfield Parrish and the Art of the Print will open to the public on Thursday, April 29, 2010. The exhibition will remain on view through July 11, 2010. During the height of Maxfield Parrish’s popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, he was the most reproduced American artist of his era. Disseminated through magazine covers, book illustrations, calendar pads, advertisements and color reproductions, Parrish’s images occupied a ubiquitous presence in popular visual culture.

“While recent exhibitions of Parrish have focused mainly on his original oil paintings, Fantasies and Fairy-Tales represents the first comprehensive sampling of Parrish’s work in a variety of printed media,” said Steven Kern, Everson Museum of Art Executive Director. “These whimsical works, based on fairy-tales and nursery rhymes, made Parrish a critical success in his own lifetime, and still delight audiences of all ages.”

Isolated from many of his fellow artists due, in part, to his enormous commercial success, Parrish developed an original and individual style that defies categorization. His career represented a challenge to the traditional artistic divide between commercial and fine art. Fantasies and Fairy-Tales testifies to the ability of Parrish to live with a foot in both worlds, simultaneously enjoying the fruits of commercial and critical success while delighting audiences of all ages.

When the Everson Museum of Art opened its present quarters in 1968, it was dubbed "a work of art for works of art." As the first museum design by internationally-acclaimed architect I. M. Pei, the Everson's design has been credited with launching Pei's world-famous career and putting the museum at the forefront of contemporary architecture. Today, the museum is more than just a "work of art." It has assumed a vital role in the reinvigoration of downtown Syracuse through artistic programs designed to maximize community involvement.

The Everson Museum of Art's roots extend to the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, which was founded in 1897 by George Fisk Comfort, a well known art educator who also helped establish the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts' inaugural exhibition was held in 1900. Within twenty years of its founding, the Syracuse museum made two character-setting decisions under the leadership of Fernando Carter, the second director of the museum. In 1911, it declared that it would seek to collect only American art (the first museum anywhere to do so), and in 1916, it purchased a small group of porcelains from Syracuse potter Adelaide Alsop Robineau, who is today considered one of America's finest ceramists and whose work is known throughout the world.

Visit The Everson Museum of Art at : http://www.everson.org/home.php

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