Parshall is the son of DeWitt Parshall, NA, banker, musician and painter. He grew up in New York City and began working in pastels as a young child. In 1917 he moved to Santa Barbara, California with his family where they lived on their estate "Quatros Vistas." He studied at the Thatcher School in Ojay Valley, at the Santa Barbara School of the Arts with Frank Morley Fletcher and at the Art Students League in New York City. Upon his return from New York he took a studio in Santa Barbara next to Clarence Mattei and Raymond P.R. Neilson.
In 1930 he made a trip to China with his family where he was influenced by the art he saw there--restrained colors and a quiet mood persisting in his work for some time afterwards. During the depression he worked as District Supervisor for the Federal Art Project. He married Barbara Cowles in 1938.
Parshall is a great outdoorsman, hunting and fishing once a week when possible. He seeks out remote places to paint--Wyoming, Santa Cruz Island in the Pacific, Santa Barbara Island. He receives his inspiration from nature, concentrating on landscape, with studies of rock formations and driftwood predominating. His work is charcterized by diffuse color and a certain mysterious mood. Other subjects include the beach life of Santa Barbara, horses, portraits and wrestlers. Rhythmic arrangements, movement and direction are important to his work.
He won the Second Hallgarten Prize from the National Academy (1924, 1927), a second medal (1924) and a gold medal (1926) at the Biltmore Salon Painters of the West and first prize at the California State Fair at Sacramento (1927). In 1942 an exhibition of his watercolors was held at the Witte Memorial Museum (San Antonio).
