1927 - 2023
Robert Andrew Parker attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1948 until 1952 and worked during the following months at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and at Stanley William Hayter's Atelier 17 in New York. After his first solo show in 1954, Parker exhibited extensively, and his credits include set designs for opera and film, as well as book illustrations. In his watercolors, Parker combined areas of pure color with design conceived in terms of silhouette and shape. He took his subject matter mostly from the natural world—dogs, trees, mountains, people, birds—and condensed and simplified imagery with a swift, expressionistic technique. During his career, Parker worked in such distinctive locales as Arles and Saint-Remy in France and the Himalayas, where a 1981 walking tour led to a series on landscapes and fellow trekkers.
