Alma Gilbert

MAJOR BOOK FINISHED!

MAXFIELD PARRISH – THE SECRET LETTERS

Alma Gilbert-Smith’s most important manuscript has been finished and is now in print as of April 2013.

Order by mail:  Price $39.95, plus $4.95 postage.  Mailing to California addresses require an additional $3.60 for sales tax. Copies will be signed by Alma Gilbert upon request.

Address orders to:  ALMA GILBERT BOOKS,  1536 W. 25th Street, Suite 448, San Pedro, CA  90732

Softcover first edition. 200 pages. More than 95 color and black & white illustrations.

The book is based on 323 previously unknown hand-written letters that the artist wrote during the years of 1936 to 1941 to a young, intellectual and beautiful woman whom he fell madly in love with late in his career. The identity of this woman has never appeared in the Parrish family papers, and is disclosed for the first time ever.

The letters are romantic, poetic, and full of the descriptive beauty of the surroundings, as well as depicting life as it happened in the Cornish Colony of New Hampshire where Parrish lived and worked. The book is complete with beautiful full color photographs of Parrish’s property, the local landscape, and of the major paintings he completed during this period where he was under the spell of this beautiful young woman.

The letters are tied to the historic happenings not only in Parrish’s personal life, but also to momentous local and world events, such as the great New England Hurricane of 1938, the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and Franklin Roosevelt’s historic 1940 third term reelection.

OTHER BOOKS AUTHORED BY ALMA GILBERT:

   Maxfield Parrish:  The Masterworks, First Edition
   Maxfield Parrish:  The Masterworks, Second Edition
   Maxfield Parrish:  The Masterworks: Third Edition
   The Make Believe World of Maxfield Parrish and Sue Lewin
   Maxfield Parrish:  The Mechanic Who Loved to Paint
   The Maxfield Parrish Poster Book, Volume 1
   The Maxfield Parrish Poster Book, Volume 2
   Maxfield Parrish:  The Landscapes
   Maxfield Parrish:  Master of Make-Believe
   Parrish and Photography
   A Treasury of Art and Children’s Literature
   Knave of Hearts Illustrations and Text
   A Cornish Colony Book of Days
   A Place of Beauty: The Artists and Gardens of the Cornish Colony

FOUNDED:

Maxfield Parrish Museum, The Oaks, Plainfield, NH

Cornish Colony Museum, Cornish, NH and Windsor, VT

Parrish House Museum Foundation, Plainfield, NH

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Marquis Who’s Who in America

Personalities of the West and Mid West

U. S. Congressional Advisory Board for Commerce and the Arts

Commemorative room at the Concord, NH State Library, opened August 2012

FAVORITE QUOTATIONS ABOUT HERSELF:

“Alma Gilbert is tougher than any old New England boiled owl”.

–Stan Colby, Plainfield Museum Board member

“She has done for Parrish’s name and fame what any loving daughter would have done for a beloved parent.”

–An unknown Parrish fan from Utah in a recent blog