Maxfield Parrish 1870-1966

By descent in the family of the artist to the present owner

Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1980 (on loan)
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, circa 2000 (on loan)

Alma Gilbert, Maxfield Parrish: The Masterworks, Berkeley, California, 1992, p.72
Lawrence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler, Maxfield Parrish and the American Imagists, Edison, New Jersey, 2004, p.154, illustrated in color

 

 

 

Maxfield Parrish’s popularity as an illustrator began with his early work for magazine publishers. An Easter 1895 cover for Harper’s Bazaar, one of the most fashionable publications of the day, led the way in a long career (through 1936) as a popular illustrator for major periodicals. Parrish’s successful foray into book illustration began in 1897 when Parrish completed the illustrations for Frank Baum’s Mother Goose in Prose. His unique style and vivid imagination were well suited to illustrating children’s literature and numerous commissions would follow.

 Will Bradley, the art director of Hearst’s Good Housekeeping was a great admirer of Parrish’s work and asked him to paint a series of fairy tale pictures for the magazine. The general theme was “Once Upon a Time” and the twelve pictures were to be published in succession over the course of a year. Parrish had already planned such a series with the idea of publishing them in a book, but Bradley convinced him to let the magazine have them first. When William Randolph Hearst saw the first covers he was so enamored, he pulled them from Good Housekeeping and sent them over to Hearst’s Magazine for their covers. Jack-the-Giant-Killer was the first of the series to be published in June 1912. Ultimately, Parrish completed only six of the twelve promised fairytales. These were: Jack-the-Giant -Killer, June 1912, The Frog Prince, July 1912, The Story of Snow Drop, August 1912, Hermes, September 1912, Sleeping Beauty, November 1912, and Puss ‘n Boots, May 1914.

Jack-the-Giant-Killer, a variation of the tale The Brave Little Tailor, is considered the source for the well-known story Jack and the Beanstalk which originated in Cornwall, England at the end of the nineteenth century. It is the story of a clever little boy in a series of exciting encounters with various slow-witted giants. Jack, like a modern day superhero, is never outsmarted, survives all the clumsy attempts on his life and ultimately slays the giant.  In Maxfield Parrish’s Jack-the-Giant-Killer, Parrish presents a humorous moment in the story when the unlikely pair sit down together to a large breakfast of hasty-pudding. The giant peers into two golden bowls of porridge, both now empty, incredulous that such a small boy could match his appetite. Cunning Jack has fooled the giant again and the fatal blow is coming. Parrish’s dynamic composition and use of juxtaposing scale underscores the humor of the moment. A diminutive Jack smiles across the diagonal of the painting over the gleaming breakfast bowls up toward the giant’s wide eyed look of amazement. Jack holds a golden oversized spoon as he gazes across a simple wooden bench at his gigantic nemesis whose legs extend comically beyond the dwarfed length of the table. The foreground of the painting shifts back through receding graphic lines of a black and white checkerboard floor. Parrish’s use of complimentary colors--the giant's red tunic and Jack's green suit--add to the playful quality of the work.

Maxfield Parrish’s love of landscape is featured in the painting as well. Behind the two protagonists, a distant view reveals a classic fairytale landscape including an idyllic castle set high above a craggy mountainside. Clusters of clouds are suspended against a sliver of pure Parrish blue sky suggesting an ending of happily ever after.