Maxfield Parrish Prints

Parrish Calendar

As a painter and illustrator, few American artists have enjoyed the wide popularity of Maxfield Parrish, both during his life and up to this day. It is said that in the 1920s and 1930s that 25% of all American homes had at least one Maxfield Parrish print hanging in the home.

Harper's Bazaar Maxfield Parrish created art that could be enjoyed by everyone, for it adorned advertisements, calendars, magazines, and books not to mention his original oil paintings. Parrish works were notable both for their luminescent use of color as well as for the themes which he uniquely captured.

Harper's Bazaar
With his first paid commission, a mural of Old King Cole in 1894, Maxfield Parrish was discovered nationally and produced his first magazine cover for Harper's Bazaar in 1895 which led to commissions for more than 25 magazines over the course of the next 40 years, including Harper's, Colliers, Scribners, Century and a Knave of Hearts in 1925.

Edison Mazda
Perhaps one of his biggest clients would be Edison Mazda Lamp Division of General Electric. Between 1918 and 1932 Parrish produced an illustration (based loosely on major events in the history of lighting) each year for Edison Mazda to use on their calendars. Edison Mazda and Maxfield Parrish became synonymous and these illustrations became known as the Parrish calendar.

Some of his most famous pieces came from his work with Edison Mazda: Solitude, Moonlight, Ecstasy, and Golden Hours to name a few. Also, there was one 1923 calendar entitled” The Lamplighter of Bagdad” that escaped both the Edison companies and Parrish’s eye. It was the misspelling of the name "Baghdad."

In the fourteen-year relationship Parrish had with Edison Mazda, they reproduced Parrish's work over twenty million times providing some of the most effective advertising of the time. The public eagerly awaited the publication of the annual Parrish calendar, cropping them to hang on walls and in frames. . Parrish's beautiful works of art for this advertising campaign are highly collectible and most sought after.