Passive Aggressive Art

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

If you ever have the opportunity to visit the St. Regis Hotel bar in Manhattan, you will want to see the famous Maxfield Parrish mural based on the nursery rhyme, “Old King Cole”:

Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.
Every fiddler he had a fiddle,
And a very fine fiddle had he;
Oh there’s none so rare, as can compare,
With King Cole and his fiddlers three.

Parrish (1870 - 1966) had a long and successful artistic career. He is remembered for his use of saturated pigments, most notably what we call “Parrish Blue”; his laborious glazing techniques; and his neo-classical imagery. His illustration work adorned calendars, magazines, advertisements and books. Although he is remembered primarily for his commercial work, he focused on landscape painting later in his career.

In 1906, Parrish was approached by John Jacob Astor IV to paint the King Cole mural for the bar at his new Knicke…