Robert Andrew "Bob" Parker

Robert Parker

WEST CORNWALL – Robert "Bob" Andrew Parker, 96, passed away at home on Dec. 27, 2023, surrounded by his loving family. Husband to the late Judith Mellecker, who died in August, he was a father of five sons and a grandfather of six.

Born in 1927, in Norfolk, Virginia, to Harriett Cowdin Parker and William Clay Parker, a dentist with the Public Health Service, the family moved frequently, living in New Mexico, Seattle, Indiana, and Chicago. He began drawing as a child while sick at home with tuberculosis.

Near the end of World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps, where he worked as an airplane mechanic. After being honorably discharged from military service in 1949, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago, beginning a long and prolific career as an illustrator, painter, and printmaker.

His work was expressive, often cheeky, with an implied narrative that reflected a wry sense of humor; some of his favorite subjects were war scenes, battleships, airplanes, dogs, monkeys, insects, landscapes, portraits, and lingerie-clad women. Known for his evocative watercolors and vivid prints, he had a loose style of drawing. Print Magazine described him as, "One of the great masters of 20th century illustration."

In 1952, he was the youngest artist to show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Later, he attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, and Atelier 17 in New York City.

He went on to create illustrations for the New Yorker, Playboy, Penthouse, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Time, New York, and other magazines. He played the hands of Vincent Van Gough, recreating his work in the 1956 film Lust for Life, starring Kirk Douglas. After the film, he was able to work as a full-time artist.

Blending his passion for jazz and art, he painted album covers for Columbia Records musicians from Duke Ellington to Thelonious Monk, and illustrated works by literary giants such as Vladimir Nabokov, Stendahl, and poet Marianne Moore, who wrote of him as an artist "for whom small things could be great things."

Parker raised five sons with his first wife, Dorothy Daniels Parker, in Carmel, New York, where their home was filled with music and art, which passed on to his boys - one, now an artist, and four who became professional drummers.

He illustrated dozens of children's books, earning a Schneider Family Book Award and a Randolph Caldecott Medal, among many awards. He also taught art at the New York School for the Deaf, Parsons School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design, Geritt Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, and the School of Visual Arts in New York.

His world travels included treks in the Himalayas, and forays to Central America and West Africa on assignment for Fortune Magazine. Aside from his art, he loved fly fishing on the Housatonic River, hunting pheasant in Ireland, and drumming in his jazz band Jive by Five,playing at New England venues for 30 years.

His work appears in permanent collections of the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and others. Inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2004, his life and work are showcased in a 2019 documentary A is for Artist, produced by the Vision & Art Project.

He is survived by sons Christopher, Anthony, Eric, Geoffrey, and Nicholas; daughters-in-law Janice Parker, Toni Marie Casella, and Shantal Riley; grandchildren Claudia, Jack, Max, Russell, Willem, and Reed, along with scores of dear friends and colleagues.

Donations can be made in lieu of flowers to the American Macular Degeneration Foundation, PO Box 515, Northampton, MA 01061.