Al Parker

Male, Deceased Person

1906 – 1985

67

Who was Al Parker?

Al Parker was an American artist and illustrator, who was known as the "Dean of Illustrators".

Parker's display of talent as a teenager led his grandfather, a Mississippi River Pilot, to pay for Al's first year in Washington University's School of Fine Arts in St. Louis, Missouri in 1922. He also played in a jazz band to earn money for tuition. He married a fellow student, Evelyn, and later joined with several former classmates to open an advertising agency in St. Louis. The business did not do well during the Great Depression, and Parker moved to New York City in 1935.

Parker got a break when a cover illustration he did for House Beautiful won a national competition. He soon was producing illustrations for Chatelaine, Collier's, Ladies' Home Journal and Woman's Home Companion. Starting in 1938, he produced a total of 50 covers over a 13-year period for the Ladies' Home Journal. He also sold illustrations to Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, McCall's, The Saturday Evening Post, Sports Illustrated, Town and Country and Vogue.

Parker is credited with creating a new school of illustration and was much imitated. In an effort to distinguish himself from his imitators, he worked in a variety of styles, themes and media. In cooperation with the magazine's art director, he secretly provided every illustration in an issue of Cosmopolitan, using different pseudonyms, styles and mediums for each story.

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Born
1906
St. Louis
Nationality
  • United States of America
Education
  • Washington University in St. Louis
Died
1985

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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