Arthur Sarnoff

Going Deep

1970s

Medium: Oil on Panel Sight Size 31.00" x 21.25", Framed 36.00" x 22.00" Signature: Signed Lower Left Maxfield Parrish began his career at age 25 as an illustrator, painting magazin...

Medium: Oil on Paper Laid on Panel Signature: Signed Lower Right Initialed lower right: M.P. Signed on the reverse: Maxfield Parish Initialed and numbered by the artist's son on the reverse: M.P. Jr. / No. 68. When Maxfield Parrish painted the comical A Dark Futurist in 1923 for Life magazine, he had already established himself as America's leading book and magazine illustrator. His early artwork for children's classics like L. Frank Baum's Mother Goose in Prose (1897), Kenneth Grahame's Dream Days (1900), and Eugene Field's Poems of Childhood (1904) popularized his signature atmospheric settings, cobalt blue-and-gold palette, and dreamy figures inhabiting magical worlds. Likewise, his covers for Century, Collier's, Harper's Bazaar, Ladies' Home Journal, Life, and Scribner's Magazine were highly desirous and instantly recognizable, often more stylized than his book imagery; no other journal illustrator could match Parrish's winning combination of precise draftsmanship, strong graphic design, and amusing characters. According to David Apatoff, Art Critic, The Saturday Evening Post, "Parrish abandoned his customary heavy details and rainbow colors to present a bolder, more high-contrast design silhouetted against a stark white background - a treatment more suitable for a modern magazine cover vying for attention on a crowded newsstand. A Dark Futurist is silhouetted against a white field with no background or details to prop it up. The composition is carefully centered with only differences in the hands and the artist's necktie to break the symmetry. These are crucial to the success of the design. Just as important as Parrish's clean, high-contrast style in these pictures is the refreshing humor and sophistication in content, which is usually absent from Parrish's fairytale paintings. A Dark Futurist shows us a different kind of modernism. Parrish steps out of his timeless fairy tales to tweak one of the most incendiary artistic movements of his day. Futurism, with its militant manifesto and its outspoken artists, was all the rage in Europe. Parrish pokes them, showing a "dark" and anxious futurist with pursed lips and thick glasses, poised to paint but not exactly sure of, or optimistic about, what the 'future' will hold. This suggests that Parrish was alert to, and had opinions about, current events of the day - something one might never guess from his usual subject matter." In his early Collier's illustrations, Parrish also developed memorable themes that he would return to in his 1920s magazine work. One of his most popular characters was the "seer," or man with keen visual powers, most often depicted as an artist, but also appearing as a tourist, scientist, and philosopher. Parrish's seer was recognizable by particular physical attributes: round glasses, indicating his visual and analytical acuity, and an overcoat and/or hat signifying his role as observer of the outside world. A Man of Letters, sold last year at Heritage Auctions, was one of the first Life covers Parrish rolled out for Gibson, and he repeated the character of the artist-seer, emphasizing the comic spin, for two later editions: A Dark Futurist (Life, March 1, 1923) captures a Parrish-like artist in foggy round glasses and a long green coat...

Medium: Oil on Panel Signature: Signed Lower Right An FFA student with his father receiving a check for his first delivery of steers to the Omaha stockyard.

Medium: Oil on Panel Signature:Signed & Dated Lower Right, ii: Signed & Dated Lower Left Literature: Coy Ludwig, Maxfield Parrish, New York, 1973, p. 153, nos. 194-95, illustrated...

Medium: Oil on Canvas Laid on Panel Signature: Signed Lower Right The Saturday Evening Post cover, November 12, 1910

Medium: Oil on Wood Panel Signature: Signed ‘Parrish’ (On the Reverse) Finished painting done as a prototype for the mural at the University of Pennsylvania LITERATURE L.S. Cutler ...

Rachel Bess Rise and Fall , 2017 oil on Dibond 10" x 8" unframed 13.5" x 11.5" framed Rachel Bess is known for her precise and theatrical oil paintings ...

"Shore Birds" by Gerald Purdy, oil on panel, 11 1/2 X 14 inches (framed size: 17 X 21 1/2 inches), $2,800. "I chose narrative art from the menu and have ...

Breath of Fresh Air, oil on panel, 48 x 36 inches, $6,000 Having grown up in England, Heather Barron innately infuses her work with a bit of British charm and decorous character. Re...

Louis-Alexandre CABIE (Dol-de-Bretagne 1853 - Bordeaux 1939) Landes in Pessac - Gironde Oil on panel H. 31 cm; L. 55 cm Signed lower right Louis Cabié, re...

Before the Beginning is a figurative work and has a highly textured surface. It is canvas over board. The sides are unframed and are covered by linen tape. The black area around th...

Barend GRAAT (Amsterdam 1628 – Amsterdam 1709) Diana the Huntress Oil on wood H. 33.5 cm; L. 44 cm Signed lower right on the stone A discreet painter with respect to history, Barend...