116: WALTER PARKE (1909-1994) REGIONALIST OIL DATED 1941

Walter Simpson Parke (1909-1994)
Untitled Regionalist Landscape (1941)
The view of a Midwest farmstead atop rolling snow-covered hills is signed lower right with date of '41 and displayed in a frame made by the artist. The work is on canvas mounted to Masonite with remains of an illegible exhibition label back side of the panel.

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Walter Parke studied at the Chicago Art institute and the American Academy of Art. He assisted Ezra Winter (1886-1949) with murals for the library of Congress and the 1939 New York World's Fair before returning to Chicago where his art was accepted in group shows at the Union League Club of Chicago, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among other exhibitions. At one time, he was president of the Chicago Pallet and Chisel academy. After working with Ezra winter, we know that Parke spent some time in Memphis and Des Moines, but the years of his residency in those cities is undocumented. He was back working in Chicago by the early 1950s when an article about his commercial illustrations appeared in The Illustrator, Spring, 1951, pages 2-10. After his career in Chicago, he retired to Naperville, Illinois, and his death is noted in the Naperville Sun, April 24, 1994. He had contacts in Nashville, Indiana where the Brown County Art Guild sold his pictures during the late years of his life. The works by Walter Parke offered in this auction are all from a local estate and important in that they were produced early in the artist's career and confirm his awareness of regionalist painting from the 1930s and 1940s.
Canvas measures 22 x 28 with a framed size of 28 x 34 inches.
Good condition, noting areas of thin surface inpainting in clusters across the top area comprising less than 15% of the painting's total area, as well as some lines along the frame opening edge. There are no other issues of scratches, losses, repairs, in-painting or touch-up.
Provenance: The Robert W. Steinbach Trust and Steinbach Family Collection, Kansas City, Missouri.
$2,000 - $4,000