1868 - 1954
Parker was raised in Kearney, Nebraska. Although accounts differ as to whether he was fourteen or eighteen years old when he won a competition for the best drawing by an amateur, it was the prize, a scholarship at the Chicago Art Institute school, with which his successful, but erratic career got its start. He studied under John Vanderpoel at the Institute, probably at two periods in the 1880s, filling the gap between with a stay in Kansas City (whether in Kansas or Missouri is also not clear) painting portraits and building decorations. It does seem sure that his last period of study in Chicago was in 1888, and that he went to Paris that year. He was accepted at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in the spring of 1889 and enrolled at the Acad‚mie Julian that autumn. This first stay abroad lasted into 1890. Parker then may have again been in the Mid-West, supporting himself with portrait work before another period of study, this time at New York's Art Students League, with William Merritt Chase and H. Siddons Mowbray.
Parker accepted a post as life class instructor at the Saint Louis School of Fine Arts around 1891, but was there only briefly, for he became the director of fine arts at Beloit (Wisconsin) College in 1893, remaining there two years. Parker was again in New York by late 1895, when he enrolled in the Academy's antique class for the 1895-96 season, and may also have been attending the Art Students League. In 1896 he won a major scholarship available to students of the several New York art schools, the $4,000 John Armstrong Chaloner Prize for study in Paris. In Paris he returned to the Ecole, where he worked under Jean-L‚on G‚r"me, and to the Acad‚mie Julian, and also became a pupil of James A. McN. Whistler. By 1897 Parker was studying mural painting with Paul Besnard, whom he assisted in the decoration of Cazin Hospital in Berck. Parker was in New York briefly in 1898, when he was appointed president of Chase's New York School of Art, but by 1900, he was back in Paris. He won his first important prize in that year's Salon, established his own school of painting in Montparnasse--and then returned to Chicago to teach at the Institute school in 1901, and in 1902, at the newly-established, progressive Chicago Fine Arts Academy.
Parker was back in France in 1903, and on this occasion became relatively settled in the Paris suburb most associated with Impressionism, Giverney. With fellow-Americans Frederick Frieske, Richard Emil Miller, Karl Andersen, Guy Rose, and Edmund Greacen he was identified with what the press called the Giverny Group. Parker's work up to this time had been largely portraits and studio-posed figure studies. At Giverney he turned towards a plein airist portrayal of women in intimate settings or sunlit gardens. Nevertheless, he did not abandon the controlled style of painting thoroughly learned in his years of academic study; it stood him in good stead for his continued work as a portraitist.
In 1913, Parker attained the honor for which he would be best remembered, the gold medal in the Paris Salon--with a figure painting executed in the studio because of bad weather; he was the first American ever to win this traditionally French first prize. He returned to America that year, going first to live in Chicago, and then in New York. This was the period of his greatest critical attention, and professional success. A one-man show of his work was presented in Chicago in 1912; he received an honorary degree from the University of Nebraska in 1914; in the Academy's winter exhibition of 1916 he received an Altman award.
Sometime in the 1920s Parker returned to France. He lived in Pailly 'Oise near Paris, where he maintained a studio. In the 1930s, with patronage for his paintings lessening, he worked more in the graphic media. With the outbreak of World War II, he sent his family to live in Santa Monica, California, but did not join them until around 1942, when the German occupation became personally oppressive. Later, Parker purchased a home in Pasadena.
Parker accepted a post as life class instructor at the Saint Louis School of Fine Arts around 1891, but was there only briefly, for he became the director of fine arts at Beloit (Wisconsin) College in 1893, remaining there two years. Parker was again in New York by late 1895, when he enrolled in the Academy's antique class for the 1895-96 season, and may also have been attending the Art Students League. In 1896 he won a major scholarship available to students of the several New York art schools, the $4,000 John Armstrong Chaloner Prize for study in Paris. In Paris he returned to the Ecole, where he worked under Jean-L‚on G‚r"me, and to the Acad‚mie Julian, and also became a pupil of James A. McN. Whistler. By 1897 Parker was studying mural painting with Paul Besnard, whom he assisted in the decoration of Cazin Hospital in Berck. Parker was in New York briefly in 1898, when he was appointed president of Chase's New York School of Art, but by 1900, he was back in Paris. He won his first important prize in that year's Salon, established his own school of painting in Montparnasse--and then returned to Chicago to teach at the Institute school in 1901, and in 1902, at the newly-established, progressive Chicago Fine Arts Academy.
Parker was back in France in 1903, and on this occasion became relatively settled in the Paris suburb most associated with Impressionism, Giverney. With fellow-Americans Frederick Frieske, Richard Emil Miller, Karl Andersen, Guy Rose, and Edmund Greacen he was identified with what the press called the Giverny Group. Parker's work up to this time had been largely portraits and studio-posed figure studies. At Giverney he turned towards a plein airist portrayal of women in intimate settings or sunlit gardens. Nevertheless, he did not abandon the controlled style of painting thoroughly learned in his years of academic study; it stood him in good stead for his continued work as a portraitist.
In 1913, Parker attained the honor for which he would be best remembered, the gold medal in the Paris Salon--with a figure painting executed in the studio because of bad weather; he was the first American ever to win this traditionally French first prize. He returned to America that year, going first to live in Chicago, and then in New York. This was the period of his greatest critical attention, and professional success. A one-man show of his work was presented in Chicago in 1912; he received an honorary degree from the University of Nebraska in 1914; in the Academy's winter exhibition of 1916 he received an Altman award.
Sometime in the 1920s Parker returned to France. He lived in Pailly 'Oise near Paris, where he maintained a studio. In the 1930s, with patronage for his paintings lessening, he worked more in the graphic media. With the outbreak of World War II, he sent his family to live in Santa Monica, California, but did not join them until around 1942, when the German occupation became personally oppressive. Later, Parker purchased a home in Pasadena.
