Best known for his loose, fluid style and masterful use of watercolor, Robert Andrew Parker’s (1927-2023) career as a painter and illustrator spanned over six decades.  Parker’s artistic inclination first came to life at eight years old when he was treated for tuberculosis at a sanatorium in New Mexico.  Years later, and after graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1952, Parker actively taught art, furthered his studies and was included in a print exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  His career as an illustrator took hold in the late 1950s while working for Time Inc. to illustrate the banana industry and oil exploitation, and then for the U.S. Air Force to document in paint military operations in Central and South America and Africa.  Because Parker’s watercolors are expressive with color and line offering a maximized effect with minimal detail, his work crossed into books for children and adults, album covers, various portraits and landscapes.

Whether on assignment or in the studio, painting, printmaking, and sculpting were at the core of Parker’s artistic realm.  Being precious about materials was far from Parker’s mind.  Rather, capturing his chosen subjects was an extension of his own passions.  As an animal lover, dogs of various breeds and different creatures are repeated muses for his works, and each results in an expression of playfulness and affection.  Poets and authors also have the distinction of being memorialized in vibrant brush strokes of watery pigment.  Such enthusiasm is also apparent in Parker’s depiction of jazz musicians, being a jazz drummer himself for decades, he created album covers for Thelonious Monk, Art Tatum, and Dave Brubeck.

As a master watercolorist, Robert Andrew Parker is admired for bridging illustration and painting throughout his career and for enjoying every moment of it.