APRIL 2020
Spring Sheltering
I’m a day late posting my April website and for this I apologize! I am, after all, a geriatric April Baby myself. I was contemplating how much today’s COVID-19 pandemic is currently affecting this country when it occurred to me that Parrish himself lived through the worldwide 1919 outbreak of influenza.
The 1919 flu pandemic, also known as the Spanish flu, was an unusually deadly strain of influenza. Lasting from January 1918 to December 1920, it infected 500 million people—about a quarter of the world’s population at the time. The death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. To maintain morale, World War I censors initially minimized early reports of illness and mortality, which greatly contributed to the mystery, and masked the seriousness, of what was happening.
To help the Red Cross, Parrish painted this double-paneled Red Cross Poster in 1919, donating it to raise funds for the volunteers that courageously fought that pandemic. How special that poster is to remind us our parents and grandparents also lived through that epic event.
Ten years previously, the artist memorialized the fun of April Showers with the whimsical work of his son Dillwyn out cavorting happily in the rain with his Dad’s mammoth umbrella sheltering him. 
This was the magazine cover he created for Collier’s Magazine for the issue of April 3, 1909
Later in his life, at the wonderful age of 90, the artist created in 1960 the beautiful rendition of rushing waters and melting snows and named it Cascades. Brown and Bigelow published it in 1962 as a summer calendar with the title Quiet Solitude.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Original Parrish Art For Sale
We thought our readers might enjoy viewing an interesting example of Parrish’s early art, and which is now available for purchase at a very reasonable price.
An original full sized 1896 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts show poster in an excellent state of preservation. By “full sized”, the poster dimensions are a huge 28″ x 44″. This particular poster has been personally autographed by Parrish himself, which is very rarely seen and hard to come by. Ludwig Catalog item #47.
Autographed 1896 Show Poster
______________________________________________________________________________________________
In regards to our 2020 exhibit of Parrish originals currently for sale, please view all the paintings, watercolors, and drawings by clicking on the Art for Sale link above.
Contact Alma Gilbert for the full catalogue and price list: agilbert@almagilbert.com
