‘I’m in my studio every day. I don’t know where else to go,” Robert Andrew Parker (known to his friends as Bob) joked recently one morning.
This charming and talented 94-year-old West Cornwall, Conn., resident is a national treasure — but more endearingly, a local one.
He’s known both as an artist (he has had a prolific fine art and illustration career) and a musician. He plays the drums and had several jazz bands, which for decades played at area venues including The White Hart in Salisbury and Washington, Conn.’s Mayflower Inn.
His radio show Swing that Music with Bob Parker still airs on Robin Hood Radio (WHDD, based in Sharon, Conn.), Monday through Friday from 1 to 2 p.m.
In his studio, the radio is always tuned to WHDD; Parker rhythmically taps a paint brush or pencil along to the music.
Although Parker might feel that his world is limited to the inside of his studio these days, his presence is felt widely in the Northwest Corner. It isn’t just his radio show; Parker’s art work is out and about all over the region. He’s prolific and generously shares his work with many area libraries and other nonprofits for their annual art sales. In June and July this year, he was featured at the Cornwall Library; from now through the month of September he has several illustrations in the Book Marks show at the D.M. Hunt Library in Falls Village; and of course he was one of the many well-known names whose work was shown in early August at the Rose Algrant Art Show in Cornwall.
When asked if his artwork has a message, Parker’s sense of humor again kicks in and he replies, “Well, I hope the message is, ‘Buy me, buy this picture!’”
Kidding aside, his long and successful career reveals a deep intellectual curiosity that led him to make several interesting artist books. His best known might be surrealist illustrations based on Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” and the character of Gregor Samsa.
The most challenging might be a collection ironically titled “German Humor,” a chronicle of the atrocities of the Holocaust.
The most accessible might be the 100 or so children’s books on topics ranging from the lives of Albert Einstein and Art Tatum to the origins of Hanukkah to Native American tales.
In addition to his commercial illustrations, Parker’s artwork is in the collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.
Parker’s studio is a simple freestanding New England country-style structure, which is actually a converted garage.
“The previous owner had a studio upstairs, but I turned it around, put my studio downstairs and parked my car in the yard,” Parker said.
There was some kismet involved in the transfer of the space. Parker is fascinated with vessels and transportation, and he learned from the prior property owner that members of the Society of Illustrators can travel with the U.S. Air Force and Navy.
“I love to travel and so I went everywhere with them — wherever there was trouble: Panama, South Africa, Rwanda,” Parker said.
Parker’s studio reveals his global perspective, and love of living things (animals, insects, people) as well as his many interests and experiences. Sculptures of model airplanes that he designed, built and painted hang from the ceiling.
“There used to be even more planes, but I sold and gave away a bunch of them.
“See that one there with the Italian colors? That’s the one that Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia flew in the first World War.
“I’ll tell you a funny story about him. There was huge support of Nazi Germany all over the country and in New York too; so LaGuardia said [they] could march on Seventh Avenue through the garment district. My friend who was a newspaperman then said that afternoon that actual sewing machines were hitting their heads.”
Photos and drawings of Parker’s musical heroes, family and friends are pinned to the walls. Flat files cradle much of his archive, bursting with prints, sketches and watercolors.
There are also the stray whimsical collectibles scattered about, some of mysterious origins. In nearly a century of life, he’s lost track of how or when some of them appeared.
Books That Robert Parker Recommends
“I like so many writers.”
• Christopher Isherwood
“We named our first son, Chris, for him. Everything he wrote I liked. My parents used to tease me [about it], but I’m a great Anglophile. We exchanged letters for a while. I sold them though; not for the money, but so they wouldn’t get lost. He and I never met.”
• Graham Greene: everything
• Kafka: “Everything about him is interesting to me. I don’t want to sound pretentious but I let dreams give me ideas in the morning. I like the spread of his sources. The story of his family is so touching — none of them survived the Holocaust. None of them. But he was gone by then.” Kafka died of tuberculosis in 1924 at age 40.
• Evelyn Waugh: “I like him very much. Very cynical English writer. Wrote a lot of things that became movies.”
Robert Andrew Parker, the beloved artist (and jazz musician) who lives and works in West Cornwall, Conn., surrounds himself with memories and images that inspire him. Photo by Sari Goodfriend
Robert Parker’s studio is thick with his own work and the work of other artists. Photo by Sari Goodfriend
