HOW DO WE FIND MR. PARKER
by Joel S. Dryer

Delivered to The Chicago Literary Club
March 25, 2002

Copyright © 2002 by Joel S. Dryer

Lawton Parker was an unpretentious man, quiet at most times, always seeking to listen and learn. His friend William Wilson once described their friendship and thereby the man in a letter to Parker's father by saying:

"Years ago , I was attracted to him by his wonderful personality, and as that friendship grew, I learned to honor and respect a man for whose beauty of nature, strength of conviction, energy and uprightness of character I have never met a better."

Writer and past Cliff Dwellers Club President Henry Kitchell Webster described what an encounter with Parker would be like on an ocean liner:

"There never was a man whose habit of life offered less pegs to hang eccentric little anecdotes on than his. You could cross the ocean in the same stateroom with him and never guess that he was a painter at all He does not talk art to you, nor gesture with his hands. Indeed it is quite possible that you might talk art to him, tell him all about it. He would listen in his quiet unassuming way, perfectly willing to learn from you "

Born at Fairfield Michigan in 1868, Lawton Parker was the son of an Ohio Sharpshooter who after the Civil War left Michigan for Fort Kearney, Nebraska and the promise of free land. The farm was young Lawton's fourth residence in five years. Perhaps this was his early indoctrination at a peripatetic lifestyle that leads us to ask "How Do We Find Mr. Parker," the title of tonight's paper.

He was encouraged to art by his parents who gave him a box of watercolors at an early age. Utilizing his talents, Lawton picked up odd jobs painting signs for area businesses as a source of income, something common for a small town boy with a talent for drawing.

In the 1882 Christmas edition of The Interior, a religious weekly published in Chicago, a prize was offered for the best picture depicting country life by a subscriber with no art training. Judges, Cyrus H. McCormick, Jr. and art professor Paul Brown (1824-1893), chose Parker's Kearney's Milkmaid. After receiving the prize Parker was sent to Omaha, Nebraska to study art. This was now his fifth residence.

An article published when Lawton was but fifteen had the prescience to predict his later success:

"There is no doubt but that Master Lawton possess a large degree of an artist's talent and will some day be known throughout the country as one of the masters of the profession."

From Omaha, Parker came to Chicago, his sixth residence, to accept free tuition in Professor Brown's private studio. Brown was active in the Chicago Academy of Design the subject of my paper at last year's closing dinner. Eventually the young pupil transferred to the School of the Art Institute where he won first prize in the drawing class. He was then given a position as graduate assistant two years later at the age of twenty, and won the school's First Prize. Parker graduated from the Art Institute in June 1888, with highest honors.

He returned to Kearney, to visit friends, on his way to Edgewater in Washington Territory, where his parents had moved now Parker's seventh residence. Parker left for his eighth residence aboard a steamer as it was tradition for promising artists to study in Paris. Now Parker became a famous artist, mind you, and to this day, scholars have been befuddled at his shifting residences, your humble member being the only scholar in the world today who has an accurate account of Parker's difficult to trace presence. Add to this $2.50 at Starbucks and you have a cup of coffee.

He entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under the great French master Gérôme in October 1888. Parker developed a strong rapport with Gérôme and the two formed a sort of friendship; something that would prove valuable to Parker in both his education and his future acceptances at annual Paris Salons where the world's great painters exhibited their works.

The year of the 1890 Paris Salon, Parker attended the afternoon session of varnishing day with Beloit College president Joseph Emerson. Emerson was visiting Paris and had sought out Parker after hearing the great master Gérôme speak of Parker as his strongest pupil. Varnishing day was a great event, and most of the important persons in art, literature and society were in attendance. Emerson viewed Parker's work, which had been accepted with the distinct honor, especially for an American, of being hung on the line of sight, no doubt due the influence of Gérôme. Emerson commented on the honor for the artist of only twenty-one by saying,

"This is the most distinguished honor that can be bestowed by the hanging committee after a picture has run the gauntlet of criticism by the judges - who decides what paintings shall be accepted, judges composed of the best artists of the nation."

When Parker left France he headed to Oak Park, his ninth residence and accepted a position as an illustrator at the religious weekly that had earlier given him a scholarship, Interior. The great master Gérôme sent Parker back to the United States with one of his palettes, (quote) "primed by the great artist himself and presented to his favorite pupil." Parker presented the palette to the Art Institute, rather than keeping it for himself.

In December 1891, Parker moved to his tenth residence to accept a position at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, now part of Washington University.

In June 1892 Parker moved to his eleventh residence in Chicago for the summer. His previous association with Joseph Emerson resulted in a position to create a department of art at the then Christian oriented Beloit College. And so in January 1893 he took up is twelfth residence just north of our state border.

The World's Columbian Exposition opened to the public on May 1, 1893. As was the practice at earlier Expositions, art schools from around the country organized exhibits to be shown in their state or city section, separate and apart from the massive Fine Arts exhibit. William M. R. French made infamous in my last paper, but the highly respected director of the Art Institute commented that Parker's students from Beloit College included "nearly all the striking pictures in the gallery devoted to art schools."

In mid October 1893, Parker headed for his thirteenth residence in New York City to broaden his education. He enrolled in the Metropolitan Museum art school. That October, he also entered the Art Students League to study. The result was he took day and evening classes from four different professors, an arduous schedule. However, late in 1895, he began studying with William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) and formed an important relationship.

Parker convinced Chase to open an art school using Chase's name but under the directorship of Parker. Unique in the United States, there were no entrance examinations, and no drawing from casts, only from life. If, after a month's trial a pupil was found deficient, he was kindly asked to leave. The school was immediately successful, attracting over one hundred students at years end, and generating a profit.

In the fall of 1896, Parker won the Chaloner scholarship for study in Europe. At the time, several well known teachers stated publicly they expected Parker would soon "become one of this country's foremost painters." Our friend William French of the Art Institute further commented, (quote) "He is a genius..."

Parker left for Paris immediately, off to his fourteenth residence. While there he devised a scheme to sell a traveling exhibit for art students in the States comprised of drawings by the best students and masters in Paris. It netted him a tidy sum.

He took up studies with four masters, a colossal work load, culminating in study with Whistler. Ever enterprising, he began acting as a paintings dealer, for Americans coming to France to purchase works and for artists desiring to find clients.

In 1899, Parker returned to America as president of the Chase School, now renamed the New York School of Art, and took up his fifteenth residence. The school had become immensely popular in just a short time now training 1,200 pupils. Parker decided he was better suited to Paris at the time and took up his sixteenth residence only a year later. There, he found the opportunity to open the Parker Academy, which existed about three years.

Parker's fame was rising on both sides of the Atlantic. He won Honorable Mention at the Paris Salon in 1900 then in 1902 he was celebrated with a Third Class Medal at the Salon, no short order for a non-Frenchman. With these two prizes and his successes in teaching it was time for a triumphant return to Chicago and his eighteenth residence.

Parker taught from October 1902 until January 1903 at his Alma Mater, the Art Institute. His hiring was in response to the increasing competition from other local art schools. The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts had been founded that fall and the new art school had enticed well known teachers and former Art Institute instructors to join them.

Parker's views on the state of teaching art in this country were aired in a published letter, and I quote:

"Titian painted one of his masterpieces at the age of nineteen... Does any one suppose that he spent three or four years drawing after our methods? Or that he was obliged to learn how to draw with the point' or by any other system? What chances have we for producing a Titian under our systems'? Today art education is a sort of corporation arrangement. The student, instead of being apprenticed to a master, usually has his education mapped out by the layman, and the artist instructor is only a hired servant in some large institution." End quote.

Those running the Art Institute were concerned they were falling behind in the latest methods, and Parker would be their answer for experimenting with an updated program. Parker's presence was felt throughout the school immediately. He was charged with the responsibility of revamping the Art Institute's teaching methods. However, after only one month of changes, Parker resigned his teaching post on January 28, 1903. He had introduced ideas that weren't exactly in accord with everyone's wishes. Probably the most extreme change was the recommendation of elimination of diplomas in favor of prizes, medals and scholarships, which in fact was later instituted. One newspaper account stated, "Lawton S. Parker, a Paris artist, is largely responsible for the sweeping changes planned." The article carried Parker's opinion, speaking out against the practice of art students "loafing" in accord with fascinating bohemianism.

His resignation was accepted on Friday, January 30th and the following Monday he was teaching at the competing Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, no surprise there. The newspapers were filled with interesting accounts of the progress of Parker's new methods and classes. At the time, this was big news in Chicago.

As classes came to a close in June, Parker stayed in Chicago to complete portrait commissions for some of the local society women and their husbands including Martin Ryerson. While promising to return, Parker headed for his nineteenth residence, a small flat in Paris.

At the end of the year he honored his promise and returned to Chicago. His portrait of Ryerson was entered into the annual Art Institute show where critics claimed the piece "dominated" the main gallery

Parker spent a disappointingly short time in Chicago as he was called to New York and his twentieth residence to take charge of classes at the New York School of Art. While the Chicago students were upset at his leaving, this time the newspapers reported, it was the Paris students who anxiously awaited "the coming of Lawton Parker." He was in an enviable position of triangulating his teaching between three schools. A true businessman, he was just getting started to use art to build a fortune.

The St. Louis World's fair in 1904 brought Parker a Silver medal. As had now become his custom, he left that summer for Paris, and then traveled a bit from there.

In the fall of 1905, while working back in Chicago, he received another major prize, the Gold Medal at the International Exposition in Munich. Parker was now so influential that the French Academy demanded the Art Institute allow him control of the exhibition by contemporary French artists in Chicago. The show received favorable reviews in the press, but possibly due to Parker's influence, Art Institute director William French was less than enthusiastic. Already at odds with Parker and his substantial influence with the trustees of the museum, the feud between the two influential men would continue to intensify until William French's death in 1914.

It is an important indication of Parker's influence that his introduction of atelier teaching methods had a large impact upon the Art Institute. Parker's influence upon the school, which William French guided, and upon the trustees whom William French reported to, would be long lasting. I have to add, given my earlier paper last year on the double- dealings of William French; I view Parker's constant thorn in French's side with a certain amount of amusement!

The final written confirmation of the severing of relations between William French and Lawton Parker came as Parker was seeking another teaching position at the Art Institute. French wrote to Parker, quote:

"I ought, perhaps, in honesty to say that I am not willing to have you connected with our school. Whether the troubles we had before were intentional on your part or unintentional, there would be risk of their recurrence, and that risk I think I should be foolish to incur. I would never be guilty of endeavoring to injure you in any way, but it appears to me too much to ask that you should be engaged as a teacher in the school again." End quote.

Here we see both a resolute and a tiptoe policy. French was afraid of Parker and his influence, so he had to be careful. He believed Parker was pushing to be named general director of the Art Institute and would use his teaching position to achieve this in lock step fashion. This clearly put the two at direct odds with each other. A position as head of the country's largest school and an important museum would certainly secure Parker his much sought after permanent residence in Chicago.

Following this refusal, Parker opened a special portraiture class in the spring of 1906, at the competing Academy of Fine Arts. His importance to that school was such that his name was listed first in its advertisements among all the other teachers. As was his norm, he left for the summer, this time for Spain, then back to Paris.

Parker was now shuttling between Paris and Chicago and devised the Franco- American Art Committee. The purpose of the committee was to promote the exhibition and sale of French artists' works in the United States. Clearly Parker had influence with the trustees who had been aggressive and avid collectors of French art, a fact that is reflected today in the strength of the museum collection. Members of Parker's committee included Art Institute trustee and Chairman Charles L. Hutchinson, trustee Stanley McCormick and wealthy industrialist and retired businessman painter Frederic Clay Bartlett (the Bartlett Gymnasium at the University of Chicago was donated by his father and Bartlett donated such notable works as Le Grande Jatte by George Seraut).

By November 1906, Parker was again in New York, and Newton H. Carpenter of the Art Institute was questioning his residency. Carpenter quoted some of the Chicago artists who claimed he said he was "leaving the city for good." But a newspaper account said, "Mr. Parker himself, however, declares he is a Chicago man." Despite his allegiance to Chicago, for the next few years Parker's twenty-first residence was in Paris at 7 Passage, Stanislas.

An investment in artist studios on the fourth floor of the Beil & Hermant building, 21 E. Pearson, encouraged Parker to take up his twenty-second residence in Chicago. Carl Beil and Leon Hermant were architectural sculptors who occupied the first three floors of the building and leased the top floor to Parker. Beil was exceptionally well known, as he had been the superintendent of sculpture for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Pan- American Exposition of 1901 and the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904.

To fit out the fourth floor, Parker must have thoroughly impressed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It was extremely rare for Wright to execute interior spaces, as he preferred total control of a building. Wright's earliest plans for Parker's space are dated May 24, 1908. Subsequent plans show sophisticated two level studios and living spaces with much of the beauty of Wright's Prairie School architecture. Parker took one of the studios and the remaining units were rented to other artists. The units consisted both of a studio and living quarters, similar to the nearby popular Tree Studio Building. Upon completion of his real estate project, Parker continued travels to Paris and Giverny, where Monet lived, over the next two years.

April 4, 1910, was a monumental day in the career of Lawton Parker. His one-man exhibition at Thurber Art Gallery then located in the Fine Arts Building opened to rave reviews. Parker's new style, influenced by his recent sojourns in Giverny, was bursting with sunshine, pure colors bright and vibrant.

Speaking of Giverny, Parker commented:

"We had a wonderful place to paint. A secluded walled garden more beautiful than Monet's we thought, because it was wilder; with a rivulet running through it, making two little quiet pools shaded by foliage."

The new style and fame spread to New York as the Madison Art Gallery opened the exhibit entitled Impressionist landscapes that included Parker's work as well as four of his contemporaries who were also in Giverny. This show marked the turning point of Parker's career. The most salient adjectives used by the many critics to describe Parker's work included: "astonishing progress" and "palpitating colors."

Our Chicago man built upon his already considerable reputation with an astounding return to Chicago from Paris in 1913. The newspapers were filled with the remarkable events of the first American ever to achieve a gold medal at the Paris Salon His prize winning painting, a nude lounging on a day bed, entitled La Paresse (idleness), caused quite a stir.

There was a move about Chicago to try and purchase the painting and present it to the Art Institute. At a dinner held in Parker's honor at the Cliff Dwellers Club, several noted artists and patrons began to formulate the plans. However, Parker wasn't interested in selling as he exhibited the work to broad acclaim over the next eight years. The painting is now in a private collection in New York.

It is appropriate, at this zenith of his career, to recount Parker's philosophy on how he arrived at such a place of success, quote:

"I soon saw that the way to get ahead of the rest of them in the Institute, was to put in more hours than the others. Art is like everything else. A person must have an aptitude for it and he must learn to work hard." End quote.

It would be no surprise that by this time his opinion was highly sought after in art matters and Parker's influence in Chicago art circles would strengthen.

He decried the ineptness of the juries for the annual Art Institute exhibitions and urged the jury be selected by the artists themselves rather than by the quote "caprice of lay officials of the institute." Parker led a group of artists in requesting not only the entry juries but the awards juries be composed only of artists. He called the then current award system a quote "Pink Tea [Fest]." This raised considerable and "lively" discussion as the ladies whose husbands sponsored the prizes wanted some say in the prize money they contributed each year. An art war broke out and made front page headlines when several of the most important artists in Chicago threatened to withhold their paintings from future exhibitions. These artists wrote a letter of ultimatum to the trustees of the Art Institute. The letter quoted in the press called the process of awarding prizes by laymen "farcical". Lawton Parker's was the lead signature on the letter. "We won't exhibit under any such county fair rules," was Parker's cry. "If they don't want our money we can go somewhere else with our prizes," retorted the ladies. Parker then stated, "The fact that these women are patrons of Chicago art does not invest them with the intelligence necessary to constitute them art critics."

Finally, early in April 1915, the governing body of artists sent their formal request to the trustees of the Art Institute asking the prize jury be composed of artists. The trustees of the museum voted to allow this change a few days later and Parker was "highly elated at the results."

Parker's influence in Chicago was completed when in June Mayor Thompson named him chairman of the Municipal Art Commission. And it was at this time, Parker received the prestigious Medal of Honor at Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

Parker attempted to mend his ties to the ladies with whom he had been fighting. On November 3, 1915, he organized a group of several of the most influential women and men in Chicago to meet and discuss the formation of The Arts Club of Chicago. In February 1916, the club, still searching for quarters, had membership, which included about three hundred artists and lay people. On March 22, 1916, the club was formally organized. Parker became the first Vice President. Grace Farwell McGann, a wealthy patron and artist, whose studio was in Parker's building, became the first president. Today, the club is still active and thriving having recently sold a Brancusi sculpture from their collection to pay for a new multi-million dollar clubhouse. However, Parker is given no credit for the formation of this important Chicago institution, yet, at the time, it was said he was the "originator" of the idea.

Early in 1917, Parker took up his twenty-third residence in New York City. New York welcomed him with acclaim when he won the $1,000 Altman prize at the National Academy of Design.

In New York, Parker planned the construction of a new artist's studio building, similar to his successful venture in Chicago. Named the Rodin Studios and located near Carnegie Hall at 200 West 57th, it was built at a cost of $1.4 million and still houses artists and galleries today. Famed Woolworth Building architect Cass Gilbert (1859-1934) was chosen to execute a design. The building was a decided success, two thirds leased before it opened. Parker moved into the building and his twenty-fourth residence in late 1917 where he remained until 1920 when he sold his substantial interest in the real estate venture to his partner. This left Parker a sizeable sum and with it he chose to leave New York to reside in his twenty-fifth residence in the village of Plailly, twenty miles outside of Paris in 1923. He had also parlayed a considerable investment in American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) into a tidy sum. A Chicago artist friend visited Parker at his six-acre estate and commented he was living in comfort with servants to care for all his needs.

At almost 60 years old, Parker finally married and a son soon followed. They were happily ensconced in the French countryside. Having ceased all exhibiting activities, he accelerated his interest in printmaking and was part of a 1935 exhibition by members of the Artists Professional League, which opened to strong reviews in Paris. One critic noted, "Lawton Parker's monotone nudes are a tour de force'."

Throughout the late twenties and thirties, Parker and his small family lived a comparatively comfortable life, somewhat pinched by the Depression, but none-the-less free to do as they pleased. His nephew recounted for me in great detail the pleasures of their life in France leading up to World War II. When the Germans marched into France, Parker knew he had to get out. He managed to sneak his family out to America via the Spanish border where they joined relatives in Montana. Parker returned to his estate to find the Germans had stolen valuable items, but had not touched his paintings.

Between 1940 and 1942, he was trapped in occupied Paris. Now homeless, after twenty-five residences, and considerably poorer, he scraped to get by. Parker fled France shortly after the United States was drawn into the war and arrived safely in New York in early July 1942; he was now seventy-three years of age. By 1943, he and his wife Bea settled in his last and final residence, number twenty-six, in Pasadena. He had enough money to afford the home and some conveniences and lived comfortably.

During the years leading up to the war, his nephew related Parker had repurchased several of his paintings when his brand of Impressionism had fallen out of favor. The Pasadena Society of Artists held a one-man exhibition of his works in March 1945. Parker was the guest of honor at their monthly dinner and recounted the story of his escape from France and earlier experiences with Whistler. He completed his retirement plans by selling his beautiful estate outside Paris, after the war ended.

The last eight years of his life were spent quietly at home where he died in 1954. His obituary was about as succinct as possible in summing up his career, (quote) "Lawton S. Parker, rated by many critics as one of the greatest figure painters in America "

As a post-script, it is interesting to follow the fate of his paintings upon his demise. His wife moved to New York with their son and placed them in storage. After she died in 1972, the works remained in storage. Son Larry was married and during the delivery of his second child complications resulted in years of medical costs. By the time the Pasadena storage company made demand for payment of past due bills, Larry hadn't the funds to sacrifice in favor of his son's health. The paintings were sold at a liquidation sale on April 13, 1974. A collector and his wife searched for the paintings after their dispersal and were able to bring together enough works to exhibit at the Baxter Art Gallery of the California Institute of Technology in April 1976. Some of his most famous works were then sold to dealers and collectors throughout the country.


Footnotes have been removed due to plagiarism. Please contact the Webmaster for a full copy of this paper, which will only be delivered with the author’s permission.

How Do We Find Mr. Parker
Copyright 2002 by Joel S. Dryer

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