Enter a world of lush landscapes, blue skies and billowing clouds all bathed in a luminous light. Graceful, willowy figures, often dressed in flowing, Grecian-like gowns, swing effortlessly and carefree amidst an idyllic, bucolic background.
In The Ethereal Worlds of Maxfield Parrish, running through May 25 at The Flagler Museum as part of the museum’s 2025 Winter Exhibition, more than 60 works of the famed illustrator, including lithographs, paintings, ephemera, photographs and prints of Parrish’s photographs, are on display.
Parrish was born in 1870, to a Quaker family in Philadelphia where painting and drawing were considered sinful. Although his father was an etcher and painter who had been discouraged in his art, he encouraged his son Maxfield to pursue his interest in art.
The younger Parrish studied architecture and later studio art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Drexel Institute of Art, where he met his wife.
During a career spanning 60 years, Parrish produced about 900 works for prominent book and magazine covers, illustrations for children’s books, stage sets, stationery, and murals influenced by his travels to upstate New York, Arizona, and Italy.
He became one of the most popular illustrators and painters in the early 1900s, reaching his peak by 1920. He was renowned for his saturated hues and paintings with idealized figures and images. He often used mythological and allegorical themes, conflating his skills as an illustrator and fine artist.
“Maxfield Parrish was important to his time and to the Aesthetic movement,” said Campbell Mobley, curator at the Flagler Museum. “His works are a reaction to the industrialization, urbanism and technology emerging during the late 19th and 20th centuries and is ‘art for art’s sake.’”
Mobley referenced an informal survey where people named both Maxfield Parrish and Vincent van Gogh as the two most recognized artists.
According to the National Museum of American Illustration, his 1922 landscape painting Daybreak, a soft-focus, golden landscape in which two figures relax under two columns and a canopy of trees, one reclining on the ground while the other, an unclothed young girl (which is said to be Parrish’s daughter), stands above her, gazing down, became the most popular print of the 20th century, outselling Andy Warhol’s Campbells’ soup cans and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
At one point, a copy of Daybreak hung in one in four American homes, according to the Flagler Museum.
The exhibition explores Parrish’s skill in evoking a dreamlike world between reality and reverie. Often associated with the Golden Age of Illustration, Parrish’s works fall within the schools of Romanticism and Fantasy, as well as the Aesthetic movement.
In his 1913 oil on canvas painting Reveries, Parrish creates a dream world in his signature colors of blue (sometimes called “Parrish blue” ) and gold. A woman in a flowing white dress, a matching flower in her hair, sits on a swing over a blue lake, her gaze downward and serene. Framing the scene is the blue sky and a tree in shades of autumn colors. The painting evokes an idyllic, idealized, peaceful scene.
Both his 1940 painting June Skies, (also known as A Perfect Day) and his 1959 landscape, Cascades, have many of the same qualities — a tranquil nature scene painted in his traditional Parrish blue and golds
.
In June Skies, the purplish and blue hues of the sky are reflected in a pool of blue water as large cumulus clouds float overhead, giving a dreamlike quality to the painting. Similarly, in Cascades, the use of earthy browns and greens depicting two large trees sitting on a body of water surrounded by large, craggy rocks, creates a tranquil nature scene with a soft, ethereal quality, giving viewers an other-worldly sense.
Mobley highlights Parrish’s focus on light and shadows to create his paintings.
Also notable, she says, is the time period in which he worked. Photography was emerging, and like Thomas Eakins before him, Parrish was one of the first artists to see how the new technology could be an advantage and not a competition for artists.
“His subjects didn’t have to hold a pose for so long,” says Mobley. “With a camera, Parrish could shoot an exact moment when the light was right and capture his subject on film.”
Alma M. Gilbert, an authority on Parrish, writes that the artist had a darkroom in his studio and used photographic slides to project images onto the wall, allowing him to accurately ensure the features in his work.
She says this technique helped him achieve the intricate details and lifelike qualities that his paintings are known for.
Seeing the paintings up close and in person is “almost surreal,” says Mobley. “There’s so much detail and gradation of color it’s hard to believe that somebody actually painted these images.”
To get this look, Parrish meticulously applied layer upon layer of transparent glazes and varnish to achieve the luminosity that makes his works unique.
To better complement Parrish’s works, Mobley says the museum added to the ambiance by lowering their lights and painting the walls in a dark blue with gold accents to mirror the “Parrish blue.”
“Having the opportunity to see Parrish’s original paintings en masse is really striking,” Mobley says.
And while there’s value in conceptualization of each piece, Mobley says, “Come see the show and suspend disbelief. Parrish creates a world where the only reality is one of beauty.”
If You Go
What: The Ethereal Worlds of Maxfield Parrish
When: Through May 25
Where: Flagler Museum, One Whitehall Way, Palm Beach
Tickets: Adults, $28; Children $14 (free under 5 years)
For more information, please call the Flagler Museum at (561) 655-2833 or visit www.FlaglerMuseum.us.