A Lust For Life

It is a well-trodden anecdote that Vincent van Gogh, the most popular and cherished artist of the modern age, couldn’t sell his work. Proportionally, Robert Andrew Parker may face a similar problem, but only because there is so much of his work to sell. Turning 95 this year, the prolific painter who has long resided in West Cornwall, Conn., is undoubtedly one of the most beloved Litchfield County artists. A visit to his rural studio reveals a boundless supply of watercolor paintings, piled and stacked and waiting to be uncovered, along with books, cards, sculptures, and his model dog-fighter planes suspended by wire, soaring from the rafters.

Opening on Saturday, April 29 at The Washington Art Association in Washington, Conn., is a mighty retrospective of his paintings and lithographs, along with a 95th birthday celebration and artist’s reception on Saturday, May 14.

Parker's masterful illustrations render scenes of wartime aerial combat, foreign travel, sultry women, silent-picture stars, parrots, and pet dogs, all curled, slanted and exaggerated, awash in a soak of poppy pastels. His work is in the collections of MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Whitney, but at 28 years old, and employed as a high school art teacher, he took the chance to play van Gogh — well, his hands at least. He was selected to fly to Arles, France by MGM to create van Gogh reproductions for the 1956 biographical film “Lust For Life,” starring Kirk Douglas as the Dutch painter and directed by Vincente Minnelli, known for his movie musicals like “Meet Me in St. Louis” and “Gigi.”

In his account for Artnet of his brief film career, Parker recalls little fondness, but concludes, “I learned a lot copying van Gogh's work and of course I greatly admired him. He took more risks with color than anyone before him. Once, at Ecole Emile Loubet, I copied his drawing of an old man with his head in his hands called “At Eternity's Gate” that so moved me I had tears in my eyes.”